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ALBERT ADSIT CLEMONS 
(Not available for exchange) 











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“ It was a note on the contents of the parcel , written by the owner.” 
—[See p.,134.] 



ARMOREL OF LYONESSE 


& Homanre of 



By WALTER BESANT 

* - 

AUTHOR OF 


“FOR FAITH AND FREEDOM” “the CHILDREN OF GIDEON ” 

“all sorts and conditions of men” etc. 


ILLUSTRATED 



) > 
> ) 3 


>3 > 


NEW YORK 

HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 

1 890 


T l-b 

A ^ 

3 


By WALTER BESANT. 


All in a Garden Fair. 4to, Paper, 20 cents. 

All Sorts and Conditions of Men. Illustrated. 4to, Paper, 
20 cents; 12mo, Cloth, $1 25. 

Armorel of Lyonesse. Illustrated. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents ; 
12mo, Cloth, $1 25. 

Children of Gibeon. 4to, Paper, 20 cents; 12mo, Cloth, $1 25. 
Dorothy Forster. 4to, Paper, 20 cents. 

Fifty Years Ago. Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth, $2 50. 

For Faith and Freedom. Illustrated. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents; 
12ruo, Cloth, $1 25. 

Herr Paulus. 8vo, Paper, 35 cents. 

Katherine Regina. 4to, Paper, 15 cents. 

Life of Coligny. 32mo, Paper, 25 cents; Cloth, 40 cents. 
Self or Bearer. 4to, Paper, 15 cents. 

The Bell of St. Paul’s. 8vo, Paper, 35 cents; 12mo, Cloth. 
(In Press.) 

The Holy Rose. 4to, Paper, 20 cents. 

The Inner House. 8vo, Paper, 30 cents. 

The World Went Very Well Then. Illustrated. 4to, 
Paper, 25 cents; 12mo, Cloth, $1 25. 

To Call Her Mine. Illustrated. 4to, Paper, 20 cents. 

Uncle Jack, and Other Stories. 12mo, Paper, 25 cents. 


Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

O?” Any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part 
of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price. 

* 

' ■ » ■ » 

< e 
0 • • 

Bequest 

Albert Adsit Clemons 
Aug. 24, 1938 
(Not available for exchange) 


CONTENTS. 


PART I. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Child of Samson 1 

II. Presented by the Sea 14 

III. In the Bar Parlor 21 

IV. The Golden Torque 28 

V. TnE Enchanted Island 43 

VI. The Flower-farm 57 

VII. A Voyage of Discovery 71 

VIII. The Voyagers 78 

IX. The Last Day But One 87 

X. Mr. Fletcher Returns for His Bag 101 

XI. Roland’s Letter 108 

XII. The Change 116 

XIII. Armorel’s Inheritance 120 

PART II. 

I. Sweet Coz 145 

II. The Sonata 154 

III. The Cleverest Man in London 160 

IV. Master of All the Arts 169 

V. Only a Simple Service 176 

VI. The Other Studio 187 

VII. A Candid Opinion 193 

VIII. All About Myself 202 

IX. To Make Him Happy 209 

X. The Secret of the Two Pictures 218 

XI. A Critic on Truth 224 

XII. To Make that Promise Sure 233 

XIII. The Dramatist 241 


IV 


CONTENTS. 


OIIAFTKR FAQ 15 

XIV. An Honorable Proposal 248 

XV. Not Two Mkn, But One 252 

XVI. The Play and the Comedy 257 

XVII. The National Gallery 271 

XVIII. Congratulations 279 

XIX. What Next? 286 

XX. A Recovery and a Flight 294 

XXI. All Lost But — 303 

XXII. The End op Worldly Troubles 318 

XXIII. The Hour of Triumph 330 

XXIV. The Cup and the Lip 334 

XXV. To Forget it All 349 

XXVI. Not the Heir, after All 3G0 

XXVII. The Desert Island 365 

XXVIII. At Home 373 

XXIX. The Trespass Offering 382 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


“it was a note on the contents of the parcel, written 

BY THE OWNER ” 

“ SHE SAT LEANING BACK IN A LOW CHAIR, HER FACE TURNED 

TOWARD3 THE WINDOW” 

“ ARMOREL CLIMBED LIGHTLY UP THE CARN AND STOOD UPON 

THE HIGHEST BOULDER ” . . * 

“ ‘ WILL YOU ADVISE ME, ROLAND LEE ?’ ” 

“THE GIRL LOOKED OVER HIS SHOULDER, WATCHING CURIOUSLY, 
FOR TnE FIRST TIME IN HER LIFE, THE GROWTH OF A 

PICTURE” 

“HE STOOPED SLIGHTLY, AS IF IIE WOULD HAVE KISSED nER 

FOREHEAD ” 

“SHE ASKED PETER, WHO ONLY SHOOK HIS HEAD AND POINTED 

WITHIN ” 

“AND THEY MARVELLED WHILE THE MUSIC DELIVERED ITS 
MESSAGE — WHICH IS DIFFERENT FOR EVERY SOUL ” . . . 

“ * I WANT TO CONSULT YOU A LITTLE ABOUT THIS PICTURE OF 

YOURS ’ ” 

“ ‘ ZOE,’ nE SAID AT LENGTH, WITHOUT LOOKING AT HER, 

‘ YOUR IMPATIENCE MAKES YOU UNJUST ’ ” 

“THE CLEVEREST MAN IN ALL LONDON, ACCORDING TO EVERY- 
BODY ” 

“ ‘ IF YOU ARE THE CLEVEREST MAN IN LONDON, YOU ARE ALSO 

THE MOST HEARTLESS’” 

“IN THE TWILIGHT SHE COULD STILL DISTINGUISH HIS FACE 
AMONG THE MEN WHO STOOD BEHIND THE CHAIRS. AND 

SHE WATCHED HIM ” 

“ ‘ GO, AND DO NOT SPEAK TO ME AGAIN ! ... GO, I SAY !’ ” . 
“ SHE RAVED ABOUT SOMEBODY WHO HAD BOUGHT SOMETHING ” 
“ ‘ NOW, MY LOVELY LADY,’ IIE SAID, GRINNING, ‘ YOU HAVE 
HAD YOUR INNINGS, AND I AM GOING TO HAVE MINE ’ ” 


Frontispiece. 

Facing p. 2 

“ 36 

“ VO 

“ 72 

“ 100 

“ 118 

“ 156 

“ 164 

“ 184 

“ 230 

“ 252 

“ 264 

“ 280 

“ 302 

“ 316 



































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ARMOREL OF LYONESSE 


Part I. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE CHILD OF SAMSON. 

It was the evening of a fine September day. Through the 
square window, built out so as to form another room almost as 
large as that which had been thus enlarged, the autumn sun, 
now fast declining to the west, poured in warm and strong. 
But not too warm or too strong for the girl on w 7 hose head it 
fell as she sat leaning back in the low chair, her face turned 
towards the window. The sun of Scilly is never too fierce or 
too burning in summer, nor in winter does it ever lose its force ; 
in July, when the people of the adjacent islands of Great Brit- 
ain and Ireland venture not forth into the glare of the sun, here 
the soft sea mists and the strong sea air temper the heat ; and 
in December the sun still shines with a lingering warmth, as if 
he loved the place. The girl lived in the sunshine all the year 
round ; rowed in it ; lay in it ; basked in it, bareheaded, sum- 
mer and winter ; in the winter she would sit sheltered from the 
wind in some warm corner of the rocks ; in summer she would 
lie on the hillside or stand upon the high headlands and the 
sea-beat crags while the breezes, which in the Land of Lyonesse 
do never cease, played with her long tresses and kept her soft 
cheek cool. 

The window was wide open on all three sides ; the girl had 
been doing some kind of work, but it had dropped from her 
hands, and now lay unregarded on the floor; she was gazing 
upon the scene before her, but with the accustomed eyes which 
looked out upon it every day. A girl who has such a picture 
continually before her all day long never tires of it, though she 
1 


2 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


may not be always consciously considering it and praising it. 
The stranger, for his part, cannot choose but cry aloud for ad- 
miration ; but the native, who knows it as no stranger can, is 
silent. The house, half-way up the low hill, looked out upon 
the south — to be exact, its aspect was S.W. by S. — so that from 
this window the girl saw always, stretched out at her feet, the 
ocean, now glowing in the golden sunshine of September. Had 
she been tall enough she might even have seen the coast of 
South America, the nearest land in the far distance. Looking 
S.W., that is, she would have seen the broad mouth of Oroo- 
nooque and the shores of El Dorado. This broad seascape was 
broken exactly in the middle by the Bishop’s Rock and its 
stately lighthouse rising tall and straight out of the water ; on 
the left hand the low hill of Annet shut out the sea ; and on 
the right Great Minalto, rugged and black, the white foam always 
playing round its foot or flying over its great black northern 
headland, bounded and framed the picture. Almost in the mid- 
dle of the water, not more than two miles distant, a sailing ship, 
all sails set, made swift way, bound outward one knows not 
whither. Lovely at all times is a ship in full sail, but doubly 
lovely when she is seen from afar, sailing on a smooth sea, un- 
der a cloudless sky, the sun of afternoon lighting up her white 
sails. No other ships were in sight; there was not even the 
long line of smoke which proclaims the steamer below the hori- 
zon ; there was not even a Penzance fishing-boat tacking slowly 
homewards with brown sails and its tw r o masts: in this direc- 
tion there was no other sign of man. 

The girl, I say, saw this sight every day ; she never tired of 
it, partly because no one ever tires of the place in which he was 
born and has lived — not even an Arab of the Great Sandy Des- 
ert ; partly because the sea, which has been called, by unobser- 
vant poets, unchanging, does, in fact, change — face, color, mood, 
even shape — every day, and is never the same, except, perhaps, 
when the east wind of March covers the sky with a monotony 
of gray and takes the color out of the face of ocean as it takes 
the color from the granite rocks, last year’s brown and yellow 
fern, and the purple heath. To this girl, who lived with the sea 
around her, it always formed a setting, a background, a frame 
for her thoughts and dreams. Wherever she went, whatever 
she said or sang, or thought or did, there was always in her ears 


She sat leaning back in a low chair , her face turned towards the window. 



HI#! 




ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


3 


the lapping or the lashing of the waves ; always before her eyes 
was the white surge flying over the rocks ; always the tumbling 
waves. But as for what she actually thought or what she 
dreamed, seeing how ignorant of the world she was, and how 
innocent and how young, and as for what was passing in her 
mind this afternoon as she sat at the window, I know not. On 
the first consideration of the thing, one would be inclined to ask 
how, without knowledge, can a girl think or imagine or dream 
anything ? On further thought, one understands that knowl- 
edge has very little to do with dreams or fancies. Yet, wflth or 
without knowledge, no poet, sacred bard, or prophet has ever 
been able to divine the thoughts of a girl or to interpret them, 
or even to set them down in consecutive language. I suppose 
they are not, in truth, thoughts. Thought implies reasoning, 
and the connection of facts, and the experience of life as far as 
it has gone. A young maiden’s mind is full of dimly seen 
shadows and pallid ghosts which flit across the brain and disap- 
pear. These shadows have the semblance of shape, but it is 
dim and uncertain: they have the pretence of color, but it 
changes every moment : if they seem to show a face, it vanishes 
immediately and is forgotten. Yet these shadows smile upon 
the young with kindly eyes; they beckon with their fingers, 
and point to where, low down on the horizon, with cloudy out- 
line, lies the Purple Island — to such a girl as this the future is 
always a small island girt by the sea, far off and lonely. The 
shadows whisper to her ; they sing to her ; but no girl has ever 
yet told us — even if she understands — what it is they tell her. 

She had been lying there, quiet and motionless, for an hour 
or more, ever since the tea-things had been taken away — at 
Holy Hill they have tea at half-past four. The ancient lady 
who was in the room with her had fallen back again into the 
slumber which held her nearly all day long as well as all the 
night. The house seemed thoroughly wrapped and lapped in 
the softest peace and stillness; in one corner a high clock, 
wooden-cased, swung its brass pendulum behind a pane of glass 
with solemn and sonorous chronicle of the moments, so that they 
seemed to march rather than to fly. A clock ought not to tick 
as if Father Time were hurried and driven along without dignity 
and by a scourge. This clock, for one, was not in a hurry. Its 
tick showed that Time rests hot — but hastes not. There is ad- 


4 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


monition in such a clock. When it has no one to admonish 
but a girl whose work depends on her own sweet will, its voice 
might seem thrown away ; yet one never knows the worth of 
an admonition. Besides, the clock suited the place and the 
room. Where should Time march, with solemn step and slow, 
if not on the quiet island of Samson, in the Archipelago of 
Scilly. On its face was written the name of its maker, plain for 
all the world to see — “Peter Trevellick, Penzance, a.d. 1741.” 

The room w T as not ceiled, but showed the dark joists and 
beams above, once painted, hut a long time ago. The walls were 
wainscoted and painted drab, after an old fashion now gone out ; 
within the panels hung colored prints, which must have been 
there since the beginning of this century. They represented 
rural subjects — the farmer sitting before a sirloin of beef, while 
his wife, a cheerful nymph, brought him Brown George, foaming 
with her best home-brewed ; the children hung about his knees 
expectant of morsels. Or the rustic bade farewell to his sweet- 
heart, the recruiting-sergeant waiting for him, and the villagers, 
to a woman, bathed in tears. There were half a dozen of those 
compositions simply colored. I believe they are now worth 
much money. But there were many other things in this room 
worth money. Opposite the fireplace stood a cabinet of carved 
oak, black with age, precious beyond price. Behind its glass 
windows one could see a collection of things once strange and 
rare — things which used to be brought home by sailors long 
before steamers ploughed every ocean, and globe-trotters trotted 
over every land. There were wonderful things in coral, white 
and red and pink; Yenus’s-fingers from the Philippines; fans 
from the Seychelles, stuffed birds of wondrous hue, daggers and 
knives, carven tomahawks, ivory toys, and many other wonders 
from the far East and the fabulous Cathay. Beside the cabinet 
was a wooden desk, carved in mahogany, with a date of 1645, 
said to have been brought to the islands by one of the Royalist 
prisoners whom Cromwell hanged upon the highest earn of 
Hangman’s Island. There was no escaping Cromwell — not even 
in Scilly any more than in Jamaica. In one corner was a cup- 
board, the door standing open. No collector ever came here to 
gaze upon the treasures unspeakable of cups and saucers, plates 
and punch-bowls. On the mantelshelf were brass candlesticks 
and silver candlesticks, side by side with “ ornaments ” of china, 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


5 


pink and gold, belonging to the artistic reign of good King 
George the Fourth. On the hearth-rug before the fire, which 
was always burning in this room all the year round, lay an old 
dog sleeping. 

Everybody knows the feeling of a room or a house belonging 
to the old. Even if the windows are kept open, the air is always 
close. Rest, a gentle, elderly angel, sits in the least frequented 
room with folded wings. Sleep is always coming to the doors 
at all hours ; for the sake of Rest and Sleep the house must be 
kept very quiet ; nobody must ever laugh in the house ; there 
is none of the litter that children make ; nothing is out of its 
place ; nothing is disturbed ; the furniture is old-fashioned and 
formal ; the curtains are old and faded ; the carpets are old, 
faded, and worn ; it is always evening ; everything belonging to 
the house has done its work ; all together, like the tenant, arc 
sitting still — solemn, hushed, at rest, waiting for the approaching 
end. 

The only young thing at Holy Hill was the girl at the win- 
dow. Everything else was old — the servants, the farm-laborers, 
the house, and the furniture. In the great hooded arm-chair 
beside the fire reposed the proprietor, tenant, or owner of all. 
She was the oldest and the most venerable dame ever seen. At 
this time she was asleep ; her head had dropped forward a little, 
but not much ; her eyes were closed ; her hands were folded in 
her lap. She was now so very ancient that she never left her 
chair except for her bed ; also, by reason of her great antiquity, 
she now passed most of the day in sleep, partly awake in the 
morning, when she gazed about and asked questions of the day. 
But sometimes, as you will presently see, she revived again in 
the evening, became lively and talkative, and suffered her mem- 
ory to return to the ancient days. 

By the assistance of her handmaidens, this venerable lady 
was enabled to present an appearance both picturesque and 
pleasing, chiefly because it carried the imagination back to a 
period so very remote. To begin with, she wore her bonnet all 
day long. Forty years ago it was not uncommon in country 
places to find very old ladies who wore their bonnets all day 
long. Ursula Rosevean, however, was the last who still preserved 
that ancient custom. It was a large bonnet that she wore, a 
kind of bonnet calculated to impress very deeply the imagina- 


6 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


tion of one — whether male or female — who saw it for the first 
time : it was of bold design, as capacious as a storeship, as flow- 
ing in its lines as an old man-of-war ; inspired to a certain ex- 
tent by the fashions of the Waterloo-period. Yet, in great part, 
of independent design. Those few who were permitted to gaze 
upon the bonnet beheld it reverently. Within the bonnet an 
adroit arrangement of cap and ribbons concealed whatever of 
baldness or exiguity as to locks — but what does one know? 
Venus Calva has never been worshipped by men ; and women 
only pay their tribute at her shrine from fear, never from love. 
The face of the sleeping lady reminded one — at first, vaguely — 
of history. Presently one perceived that it was the identical 
face which that dread Occidental star, Queen Elizabeth herself, 
would have assumed had she lived to the age of ninety-five, 
which was Ursula’s time of life in the year 1884. For it was 
an aquiline face, thin and sharp ; and if her eyes had been open 
you would have remarked that they were bright and piercing, 
also like those of the Tudor queen. Her cheek still preserved 
something of the color which had once made it beautiful ; but 
cheek and forehead alike were covered with lines innumerable, 
and her withered hands seemed to have grown too small for 
their natural glove. She was dressed in black silk, and wore a 
gold chain about her neck. 

The clock struck half-past five melodiously. Then the girl 
started and sat upright — as awakened out of her dream. “ Ar- 
morel,” it seemed to say — nay, since it seemed to say, it actu- 
ally did say — “ Child Armorel, I am old and wise. For a hun- 
dred and forty-three years, ever since I left the hands of the 
ingenious Peter Trevellick, of Penzance, in the year 1741, I 
have been counting the moments, never ceasing save at those 
periods when surgical operations have been necessary. In each 
year there are 31,530,000 moments. Judge, therefore, for your- 
self how many moments in all I have counted. I must, you 
will own, be very wise indeed. I am older even than your 
great-great-grandmother. I remember her a baby first, and 
then a pretty child, and then a beautiful woman, for all she is 
now so worn and wizened. I remember her father and her 
grandfather. Also her brothers and her son, and her grandson 
— and your own father, dear Armorel. The moments pass: 
they never cease : I tell them as they go. You have but short 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


1 


space to do all you wish to do. You, child, have done nothing 
at all yet. But the moments pass. Patience. For you, too, 
work will be found. Youth passes. You can hear it pass. I 
tell the moments in which it melts away and vanishes. Age 
itself shall pass. You may listen if you please. I tell the mo- 
ments in which it slowly passes.” 

Armorel looked at the clock with serious eyes during the 
delivery of this fine sermon, the whole bearing -of which she did 
not perhaps comprehend. Then she started up suddenly and 
sprang to her feet, stung by a sudden pang of restlessness, with 
a quick breath and a sigh. We who have passed the noon of 
life are apt to forget the disease of restlessness to which youth 
is prone : it is an affection which greatly troubles that period of 
life, though it should be the happiest and the most contented : 
it is a disorder due to anticipation, impatience, and inexperi- 
ence. The voyage is all before : youth is eager to be sailing on 
that unknown ocean full of strange islands ; who would not be 
restless with such a journey before one and such discoveries to 
make ? 

Armorel opened the door noiselessly, and slipped out. At 
the same moment the old dog awoke and crept out with her, 
going delicately and on tiptoe lest he should awaken the ancient 
lady. In the hall outside the girl stood listening. The house 
was quite silent, save that from the kitchen there was wafted 
on the air a soft droning — gentle, melodious, and murmurous, 
like the contented booming of a bumble-bee among the figwort. 
Armorel laughed gently. “ Oh !” she murmured ; “ they are all 
asleep. Grandmother is asleep in the parlor ; Dorcas and Ches- 
sun are asleep in the kitchen ; Justinian is asleep in the cottage, 
and I suppose the boy is asleep somewhere in the farm-yard.” 

The girl led the way, and the dog followed. 

She passed through the door into the garden of the front. 
It was not exactly a well-ordered garden, because everything 
seemed to grow as it pleased ; but then in Samson you have not 
to coax flowers and plants into growing; they grow because it 
pleases them to grow ; this is the reason why they grow so tall 
and so fast. The garden faced the southwest, and was pro- 
tected from the north and east by the house itself and by a 
high stone wall. There is not anywhere on the island a warmer 
and sunnier corner than this little front garden of Holy Hill. 


8 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


The geranium clambered up the walls beside and among the 
branches of the tree-fuchsia, both together covering the front 
of the house with the rich coloring of their flowers. On either 
side of the door grew a great tree, with gnarled trunk and 
twisted branches, of lemon verbena, fragrant and sweet, per- 
fuming the air ; the myrtles were like unto trees for size ; the 
very marguerites ran to timber of the smaller kind ; the pam- 
pas-grass in the warmest corner rose eight feet high, waving its 
long silver plumes ; the tall stalk still stood which had borne 
the flowers of an aloe that very summer ; the leaves of the plant 
itself were slowly dying away, their lifework, which is nothing 
at all but the production of that one flowering stem, finished. 
That done, the world has no more attractions for the aloe : it is 
content ; it slowly dies away. And in the front of the garden 
was a row of tall dracaena palms. An old ship’s figure-head, 
thrown ashore after a wreck, representing the head and bust of 
a beautiful maiden, gilded, but with a good deal of the gilt 
rubbed off, stood in the left hand of the garden, half hidden by 
another fuchsia-tree in flower ; and a huge old-fashioned ship’s 
lantern hung from an iron bar projecting over the door of the 
house. 

The house itself was of stone, with a roof of small slates. 
Impossible to say how old it was, because in this land stone- 
work ages rapidly, and soon becomes covered with yellow and 
orange lichen, while in the interstices there soon grows the gray 
sandwort ; and in the soft sea air and the damp sea mists the 
sharp edges even of granite are quickly rounded off and crum- 
bled. But it was a very old house, save for the square project- 
ing window, which had been added recently — say thirty or 
forty years ago — a long, low house of two stories, simply built ; 
it stands half-way up the hill which slopes down to the water’s 
edge ; it is protected from the north and northeast winds, 
which are the deadliest enemies to Scilly, partly by the hill be- 
hind and partly by a spur of gray rock running like an ancient 
Cyclopean wall down the whole face of the hill into the sea, 
where for many a fathom it sticks out black teeth, round which 
the white surge rises and tumbles, even in the calmest time. 

Beyond the garden-wall — why they wanted a garden-wall I 
know not, except for the pride and dignity of the thing — was a 
narrow green, with a little — a very little — pond ; in the pond 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


9 


there were ducks ; and beside the green was a small farm-yard, 
containing everything that a farm-yard should contain except a 
stable. It had no stable, because there are no horses or carts 
upon the island. Pigs there are, and cows; fowls there are, 
and ducks and geese, and a single donkey for the purpose of 
carrying the flower baskets from the farm to the landing-place. 
But neither horse nor cart. 

Beyond the farm-yard was a cottage, exactly like the house, 
but smaller. It was thatched, and on the thatch grew clumps 
of samphire. This was the abode of Justinian Tryeth, bailiff, 
head man, or foreman, who managed the farm. When you 
have named Ursula Rosevean, and Armorel, her great-great- 
granddaughter, and Justinian Tryeth, and Dorcas his wife — she 
was a native of St. Agnes, and therefore a Hicks by birth — 
Peter his son, and Chessun his daughter, you have a complete 
directory of the island, because nobody else now lives on Sam- 
son. Formerly, however, and almost within the memory of the 
oldest inhabitant, according to the computation of antiquaries 
and the voice of tradition, this island maintained a population 
of over two score. 

The hill which rises behind the house is the southern hill of 
the two which, with the broad valley between them, make up 
the Island of Samson. This hill slopes steeply seaward to 
south and west. It is not a lofty hill, by any means. In Scilly 
there are no lofty hills. When Nature addressed herself to 
the construction of this archipelago she brought to the task a 
light touch ; at the moment she happened to be full of feeling 
for the great and artistic effects which may be produced by 
small elevations, especially in those places where the material 
is granite. Therefore, though she raised no Alpine peak in 
Scilly, she provided great abundance and any variety of bold 
coast-line with rugged cliffs, lofty earns, and headlands piled 
with rocks. And her success as an artist in this genre has been 
undoubtedly wonderful. The actual measurement of Holy Hill, 
Samson — but why should we measure ? — has been taken, for the 
admiration of the world, by the Ordnance Survey. It is really 
no more than a hundred and thirty-two feet — not a foot more 
or less. But then one knows hills ten times that height — the 
Herefordshire Beacon, for example — which are not half so 
mountainous in the effect- produced. Only a hundred and 
1 * 


10 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


thirty-two feet — yet on its summit one feels the exhilaration of 
spirits caused by the air, elsewhere, of five thousand feet at 
least. On its southern and western slopes lie the fields which 
form the Flower Farm of Holy Hill. 

Below the farm-yard the ground sloped more steeply to the 
water; the slope was covered with short heather fern, now 
brown and yellow, and long trailing branches of bramble, now 
laden with ripe blackberries, the leaves enriched with blazon of 
gold and purple and crimson. 

Armorel ran across the green and plunged among the fern, 
tossing her arms and singing aloud, the old dog trotting and 
jumping, but with less elasticity, beside her. She was bare- 
headed ; the sunshine made her dark cheeks ruddy and caused 
her black eyes to glow. Hebe, young and strong, loves Phoebus 
and fears not any freckles. When she came to the water’s edge, 
where the boulders lie piled in a broken mass among and above 
the water, she stood still and looked across the sea, silent for a 
moment. Then she began to sing in a strong contralto ; but no 
one could hear her, not even the coastguard on Telegraph Hill, 
or he of the Star Fort ; the song she sang was one taught her by 
the old lady, who had sung it herself in the old, old days, when 
the road was always filled with merchantmen waiting for convoy 
up the Channel, and when the islands were rich with the trade 
of the ships, and their piloting, and their wrecks — to say nothing 
of the free trade which went on gallantly and without break or 
stop. As she sang she lifted her arms and swung them in slow 
cadence as a Nautch-girl sometimes swings her arms. What she 
sang was none other than the old song — 

“Early one morning, just as the sun was rising, 

I heard a maid sing in the valley below : 

‘ Oh ! don’t deceive me. Oh 1 never leave me. 

How could you use a poor maiden so !’ ” 

In the year of grace 1884 Armorel was fifteen years of age. 
But she looked nineteen or twenty, because she was so tall and so 
well-grown. She was dressed simply in a blue flannel ; the straw 
hat which she carried in her hand was trimmed with red ribbons ; 
at her throat she had stuck a red verbena — she naturally took to 
red, because her complexion was so dark. Black hair ; black 
eyes ; a strongly marked brow ; a dark cheek of warm and 
ruddy hue ; the lips full, but the mouth finely curved ; features 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


11 


large but regular — she was already, though so young, a tall and 
handsome woman. Those able to understand things would rec- 
ognize in her dark complexion, in her carriage, in her eyes, and 
in her upright figure the true Castilian touch. The gypsy is 
swarthy ; the negro is black ; the mulatto is dusky ; it is not 
the color alone, but the figure and the carriage also, which mark 
the Spanish blood. A noble Spanish lady ; yet how could she 
get to Samson ? 

She wore no gloves — you cannot buy gloves in Samson — and 
her hands were brown with exposure to the sea and sun, to wind 
and rain ; they were by no means tiny hands, but strong and 
capable hands ; her arms — no one ever saw them, but for shape 
and whiteness they could not be matched — would have dis- 
graced no young fellow of her own age for strength and muscle. 
That was fairly to be expected in one who continually sailed and 
rowed across the inland seas of this archipelago ; who went to 
church by boat and to market by boat ; who paid her visits by 
boat and transacted her business by boat, and went by boat to 
do her shopping. She who rows every day upon the salt w r ater, 
and knows how to manage a sail when the breeze is strong and 
the Atlantic surge rolls over the rocks and roughens the still 
water of the road, must needs be strong and sound. For my own 
part, I admire not the fragile maiden so much as her who rejoices 
in her strength. Youth, in woman as well as in man, should be 
brave and lusty; clean of limb as well as of heart; strong of 
arm as well as of will, enduring hardness of voluntary labor as 
well as hardness of involuntary pain ; with feet that can walk, 
run, and climb, and with hands that can hold on. Such a girl 
as Armorel, so tall, so strong, so healthy, offers, methinks, a home 
ready-made for all the virtues, and especially the virtues femi- 
nine, to house themselves therein. Here they will remain, grow- 
ing stronger every day, until at last they have become part and 
parcel of the very girl herself, and cannot be parted from her. 
Whereas, when they visit the puny creature, weak, timid, deli- 
cate — but no — ’tis best to remain silent. 

How many times had the girl wandered, morning or afternoon, 
down the rough face of the hill, and stood looking vaguely out 
to sea, and presently returned home again? How many such 
walks had she taken and forgotten ? For a hundred times — yea, 


12 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


a thousand times — we do over and over again the old familiar 
action, the little piece of the day’s routine, and forget it when 
we lie down to sleep. But there comes the thousandth time 
when the same thing is done again in the same way, yet is never 
to be forgotten. For on that day happens the thing wdiich 
changes and charges a whole life. It is the first of many days. 
It is the beginning of new days. From it, whatever may have 
happened before, everything shall now be dated until the end. 
Mohammed lived many years, but all the things that happened 
unto him or his successors are dated from the Flight. Is it for 
nothing that it has been told what things Armorel did and how 
she looked on this day ? Not so, but for the sake of what hap- 
pened afterwards, and because the History of Armorel begins 
with this restless fit, which drove her out of the quiet room down 
the hillside to the sea. Her history begins, like every history 
of a woman worth relating, with the man cast by the sea upon 
the shores of her island. The maiden always lives upon an island, 
and whether the man is cast upon the shore by the Sea of Society, 
or the Sea of Travel, or the Sea of Accident, or the Sea of Ad- 
venture, or the Sea of briny waves and roaring winds and jagged 
rocks, matters little. To Armorel it was the last. To you, dear 
Dorothy or Violet, it will doubtless be by the Sea of Society. 
And the day that casts him before your feet will ever after begin 
a new period in your reckoning. 

Armorel stopped her song as suddenly as she had begun it. 
She stopped because in the water below her, not far from the 
shore, she saw a strange thing. She had good sea eyes — an 
ordinary telescope does not afford a field of vision much larger 
or clearer across the water than Armorel’s eyes — but the thing 
was so strange that she shaded her forehead with her hand, and 
looked more curiously. 

It would be strange on any evening, even after the calmest 
day of summer, when the sun is setting low, to see a small boat 
going out beyond Samson towards the Western Islets. There 
the swell of ocean is always rolling among the rocks and round 
the crags and headlands of the isles. Only in calm weather and 
in broad daylight can the boatman who knows the place venture 
in those waters. Not even the most skilled boatman would steer 
for the outer islands at sunset. For there are hidden rocks, long 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


13 


ridges of teeth that run out from the islands to tear and grind 
to powder any boat that should be caught in their devouring 
jaws. There are currents, also, which run swiftly and unexpect- 
edly between the islands, to sweep the boat along with them till 
it shall strike the rocks and so go down with any who are aboard ; 
and there are strong gusts which sweep round the headlands and 
blow through the narrow sounds. So that it is only when the 
day is calm and in the full light of the sun that a boat can sail 
among these islands. 

Yet Armorel saw a boat on the water, not half a mile from 
Samson, with two men on hoard. More than this, the boat was 
apparently without oars or sails, and it was drifting out to sea. 
What did this mean ? 

She looked and wondered. She looked again, and she re- 
membered. 

The tide was ebbing, the boat was floating out with the tide ; 
the breeze had dropped, but there was still something left ; what 
there was came from the southeast and helped the boat along ; 
there was not much sea, but the feet of Great Minalto were white, 
and the white foam kept leaping up the sides, and on her right, 
over the ledges round White Island, the water was tearing and 
boiling a white and angry heap. Why, the wind was getting up, 
and the sun was setting, and if they did not begin to row back 
as hard as they could, and that soon, they would be out to sea 
and in the dark. 

She looked again, and she thought more. The sinking sun 
fell upon the boat, and lit it up so plainly that she could now 
see very well two things. First that the boat was really with- 
out any oars or sail at all ; and, next, that the two men in her 
were not natives of Scilly. She could not discern their faces, 
but she could tell by their appearance and the way they sat in 
the boat that they were not men of the place. Besides, what 
would an islander want out in a boat at such a time and in such 
a place ? They were, therefore, visitors ; and by the quiet way 
in which they sat, as if it mattered not at all, it was perfectly 
plain that they understood little or nothing of their danger. 

Again she considered, and now it became certain to her, look- 
ing down upon the boat, that the current was not taking her out 
to sea at all, which would be dangerous enough, but actually 
straight on to the ridge or. ledge of rocks lying off the south- 


14 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


west of White Island. Then, seized with sudden terror, she 
turned and fled back to the farm. 


CHAPTER II. 

PRESENTED BY THE SEA. 

“ Peter !” cried Armorel in the farm-yard ; “ Peter ! Peter ! 
Wake up ! Where is the boy ? Wake up and come quick !” 

The boy was not sleeping, however, and came forth slowly, 
but obediently, in rustic fashion. He was a little older than 
most of those who still permit themselves to be called boys ; 
unless his looks deceived one, he was a great deal older, for he 
was entirely bald, save for a few long scattered hairs, which 
were white. His beard and whiskers also consisted of nothing 
but a few spare white hairs. He moved heavily, without the 
spring of boyhood in his feet. Had Peter jumped or run, one 
misdit in haste have inferred a condition of drink or mental 
disorder. As for his shoulders, too, they were rounded, as if 
by the weight of years, a thing which is rarely seen in boys. 
Yet Armorel called this antique person the boy, and he an- 
swered to the name without remonstrance. 

“Quick, Peter!” she cried. “There’s a boat drifting on 
White Island Ledge, and the tide’s running out strong, and 
there are two men in her, and they’ve got no oars in the boat. 
Ignorant trippers, I suppose ! They will both be killed to a 
certainty, unless — Quick !” 

Peter followed her flying footsteps with a show of haste and 
a movement of the legs approaching alacrity. But then he was 
always a slow boy, and one who loved to have his work done 
for him. Therefore, when he reached the landing-place, he 
found that Armorel was well before him, and that she had 
already shipped mast and sail and oars, and was waiting for 
him to shove off. 

Samson has two landing beaches, one on the northeast below 
Bryher Hill, and the other farther south, on the eastern side of 
the valley. There might be a third, better than either, on Porth 
Bay, if any one desired to put off there on the west side facing 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


15 


the other islands, -where nobody has any business at all except 
to see the rocks or to shoot wild birds. 

The beach used by the Holy Hill folk was the second of 
these two ; here they kept their boats, and had their old stone 
boat-house to store the gear ; and it was here that Armorel stood 
waiting for her companion. 

Peter was slow on land ; at sea, however, he alone is slow 
who does not know what can be got out of a boat, and how it 
can be got. Peter did possess this knowledge ; all the islanders, 
in fact, have it. They are born with it. They also know that 
nothing at sea is gained by hurry. It is a maxim which is said 
to rule or govern their conduct on land as well as afloat. Peter, 
therefore, when he had pushed off, sat down and took an oar 
with no more appearance of hurry than if he were taking a 
boat-load of boxes filled with flowers across to the Port. Ar- 
morel took the other oar. 

“ They are drifting on White Island Ledge,” repeated Ar- 
morel ; “ and the tide is running out fast.” 

Peter made no reply — Armorel expected none — but dipped 
his oar. They rowed in silence for ten minutes. Then Peter 
found utterance, and spoke slowly. 

“ Twenty years ago — I remember it well — a boat went ashore 
on that very Ledge. The tide was running out — strong, like 
to-night. There was three men in her. Visitors they were, 
who wanted to save the boatman’s pay. Their bodies was 
never found.” 

Then both pulled on in silence and doggedly. 

In ten minutes or more they had rounded the Point at a re- 
spectful distance, for reasons well known to the navigator and 
the nautical surveyor of Scilly. Peter, without a word, shipped 
his oar. Armorel did likewise. Then Peter stepped the mast 
and hoisted the sail, keeping the line in his own hand, and 
looked ahead, while Armorel took the helm. 

“ It’s Jinkins’s boat,” said Peter, because they were now in 
sight of her. “What’ll Jinkins say when he hears that his 
boat’s gone to pieces?” 

“ And the two men ? Who are they ! Will Jenkins say noth- 
ing about the men ?” 

“ Strangers they are ; gentlemen, I suppose. Well — if the 
breeze doesn’t soon — Ah ! Here it is !” 


16 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


The wind suddenly filled the sail. The boat heeled over 
under the breeze, and a moment after was flying through the 
water straight up the broad channel between the two Minaltos 
and Samson. 

The sun was very low now ; between them and the west lay 
the boat they were pursuing, a small black object with two 
black silhouettes of figures clear against the crimson sky. And 
now Armorel perceived that they had by this time gotten an 
inkling, at least, of their danger, for they no longer sat passive, 
but had torn up a plank from the bottom with which one, kneel- 
ing in the bow, was working as with a paddle, but without sci- 
ence ; the boat yawed this way and that, but still kept on her 
course drifting to the rocks. 

“ If she touches the Ledge, Peter,” said Armorel, 11 she will 
be in little bits in five minutes. The water is rushing over it 
like a midstream.” 

This she said ignorant of midstreams, because there are none 
on Scilly ; but the comparison served. 

“ If she touches,” Peter replied, “ we may just go home 
again. For we shad be no good to nobody.” 

Beyond the boat they could plainly see the waters breaking 
over the Ledge ; the sun lit up the white foam that leaped and 
flew over the black rocks just showing their teeth above the 
water as the tide went down. 

Here is a problem — you may find plenty like it in every book 
of algebra. Given a boat drifting upon a ledge of rock with the 
current and the tide ; given a boat sailing in pursuit with a fair 
wind aft ; given also the velocity of the current and the speed 
of the boat and the distance of the first boat from the rocks: 
at what distance must the second boat commence the race in 
order to catch up the first before it drives upon the rocks ? 

This second boat, paying close attention to the problem, came 
up hand over hand, rapidly overtaking the first boat where the 
two men not only understood at last the danger they were in, 
but also that an attempt was being made to save them. In fact, 
one of them, who had some tincture or flavor of the mathematics 
left in him from his school-days, remembered the problems of 
this class, and would have given a great deal to have been back 
again in school working out one of them. 

Presently the boats were so near that Peter hailed, “ Boat 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


17 


alioy ! Back her ! Back her, or you’ll be upon the rocks ! Back 
her all you know !” 

“ We’ve broken our oars,” they shouted. 

“Keep her off!” Peter bawled again. 

Even with a plank taken from the bottom of the boat a 
practised boatman would have been able to keep her off long 
enough to clear the rocks ; but these two young men were not 
used to the ways of the sea. 

“ Put up your helium,” said Peter quietly. 

“ What are you going to do ?” The girl obeyed first, as one 
must do at sea, and asked the question afterwards. 

“There’s only one chance. We must cut across her bows. 
Two lubbers ! They ought not to be trusted with a boat. There’s 
room.” He looked at the Ledge ahead and at his own sail. 
“ Now — steady.” He tightened the rope, the boat changed her 
course. Then Peter stood up and called again, his hand to his 
mouth. “ Back her ! Back her ! Back her all you know !” 
He sat down and said quietly, “ Now, then — luff it is — luff — all 
you can.” 

The boat turned suddenly. It was high time. Right in front 
of them — only a few yards in front — the water rushed as if 
over a cascade, boiling and surging among the rocks. At high 
tide there would have been the calm, unruffled surface of the 
ocean swell ; now there were roaring floods and swelling whirl- 
pools. The girl looked round, but only for an instant. Then 
the boat crossed the bows of the other, and Armorel, as they 
passed, caught the rope that was held out to her. 

One moment more and they were off the rocks, in deep water, 
towing the other boat after them. 

Then Peter arose, lowered the sail, and took down his mast. 

“ Nothing,” he said, “ between us and Mincarlo. Now, gentle- 
men, if you will step into this boat we can tow yours along with 
us. So— take care, sir. Sit in the stern beside the young lady. 
Can you row, either of you ?” 

They could both row, they said. In these days a man is as 
much ashamed of not being able to row as, fifty years ago, he 
was ashamed of not being able to ride. Peter took one oar and 
gave the other to the stranger nearest. Then, without more 
word, he dipped his oar and began to row back again. The sun 
went down, and it suddenly became cold. 


18 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


Armorel perceived that the man beside her was quite a young 
man — not more that one or two and twenty. lie wore brave 
attire — even a brown velvet jacket, a white waistcoat, and a 
crimson necktie; he also had a soft felt hat. Nature had not 
yet given him much beard, but what there was of it he wore 
pointed, with a light moustache so arranged as to show how it 
would be worn when it became of a respectable length. As he 
sat in the boat he seemed tall. And he did not look at all like 
one of the bawling and boastful trippers who sometimes come 
over to the islands for a night and pretend to know how to 
manage a boat. Yet — 

“ What do you mean,” asked the girl, severely, “ by going 
out in a boat, when you ought to have known very w r ell that you 
could not manage her ?” 

“ We thought we could,” replied this disconcerted pretender, 
with meekness suitable to the occasion. Indeed, under such 
humiliating circumstances, Captain Parolles himself would be- 
come meek. 

“ If we had not seen you,” she continued, “ you would most 
certainly have been killed.” 

“ I begin to think we might. We should certainly have gone on 
those rocks. But there is an island close by. We could swim.” 

“ If your boat had touched those rocks you would have been 
dead in three minutes,” this maid of wisdom continued. “ Noth- 
ing could have saved you. No boat could have come near you. 
And to think of standing or swimming in that current and among 
those rocks ! Oh ! but you don’t know Scilly.” 

“ No,” he replied, still with a meekness that disarmed wrath, 
“ I’m afraid not.” 

“Tell me how it happened.” 

The other man struck in — he who was wielding the oar. He 
also was a young man, of shorter and more sturdy build than the 
other. Had he not, unfortunately, confined his whole attention 
in youth to football, he might have made a good boatman. 
Keally, a young man whose appearance conveyed no information 
or suggestion at all about him except that he seemed healthy, 
active, and vigorous, and that he was, presumably, short-sighted, 
or he would not have worn spectacles. 

“ I will tell you how it came about,” he said. “ This man 
would go sketching the coast. I told him that the islands are 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


19 


so beautifully and benevolently built that every good bit lias got 
another bit on the next island, or across a cove, or on the other 
side of a bay, put there on purpose for the finest view of the 
first bit. You only get that arrangement, you know, in the Isles 
of Scilly and the Isles of Greece. But he wouldn’t be persuad- 
ed, and so we took a boat and went to sea, like the three mer- 
chants of Bristol city. We saw Jerusalem and Madagascar very 
well, and if you hadn’t turned up in the nick of time I believe 
we should have seen the river Styx as well, with Cocytus very 
likely ; good old Charon certainly ; and Tantalus, too much pun- 
ished — overdone — up to his neck.” 

Armorel heard, wondering what, in the name of goodness, 
this talker of strange language might mean. 

“When his oar broke, you know,” the talker went on, “I 
began to laugh, and so I caught a crab ; and while I lay in the 
bottom laughing like Tom of Bedlam, my oar dropped over- 
board, and there we were. Five mortal hours we drifted ; but 
we had tobacco and a flask, and we didn’t mind so very much. 
Some boat, we thought, might pick us up.” 

“ Some boat !” echoed Armorel. “ And outside Samson !” 

“ As for the rocks, we never thought about them. Had we 
known of the rocks, we should not have laughed.” 

“ You have saved our lives,” said the young man in the velvet 
jacket. He had a soft, sweet voice, which trembled a little as 
he spoke. And, indeed, it is a solemn thing to be rescued from 
certain death ! 

“ Peter did it,” Armorel replied. “ You may thank Peter.” 

“ Let me thank you,” he said, softly and persuasively. “ The 
other man may thank Peter.” 

“ Just as you like. So long, that is, as you remember that it 
will have to be a lesson to you as long as you live never to go 
out in a boat without a man.” 

“It shall be a lesson. I promise. And the man I go out 
with, next time, shall not be you, Dick.” 

“ Never,” she went on, enforcing the lesson — “ never go in a 
boat alone, unless you know the waters. Are you Plymouth 
trippers? But then Plymouth people generally know how to 
handle a boat.” 

“ We are from London.” In the twilight the blush caused 
by being taken for a Plymouth tripper was not perceived. “ I 


20 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


am an artist, and I came to sketch.” He said this with some 
slight emphasis and distinction. There must be no mistaking 
an artist from London for a Plymouth tripper. 

“You must be hungry.” 

“ We are ravenous, but at this moment one can only feel 
that it is better to be hungry and alive than to be drowned and 
dead.” 

“Oh!” she said, earnestly, “you don’t know how strong 
the water is. It would have thrown you down and rolled you 
over and over among the rocks, your head would have been 
knocked to pieces, your face would have been crushed out of 
shape, every bone would have been broken ; Peter has seen 
them so.” 

“ Ay ! ay !” said Peter. “ I’ve picked ’em up just so. You 
are well off those rocks, gentlemen.” 

Silence fell upon them. The twilight was deepening; the 
breeze was chill, Armorel felt that the young man beside her 
was shivering — perhaps with the cold. He looked across the 
dark water and gasped. “ We are coming up,” he said, “ out 
of the gates of death and the jaws of hell. Strange ! To have 
been so near unto dying. Five minutes more, and there would 
have been an end, and two more men would have been created 
for no other purpose but to be drowned.” 

Armorel made no reply. The oars kept dipping, dipping, 
evenly and steadily. Across the waters on either hand flashed 
lights: St. Agnes and the Bishop from the south — they are 
white lights ; and from the north the crimson splendor of Round 
Island: the wind was dropping, and there was a little phos- 
phorescence on the water, which gleamed along the blade of the 
oar. 

In half an hour the boat rounded the new pier and they were 
in the harbor of Hugh Town at the foot of the landing-steps. 

“ Now,” said Armorel, “ you had better get home as fast as 
you can and have some'supper.” 

“ Why,” cried the artist, realizing the fact for the first time, 
“ you are bare-headed ! You will kill yourself.” 

“ I am used to going about bare-headed. I shall come to no 
harm. Now go and get some food.” 

“ And you ?” The young man stood on the stepping-stones 
ready to mount. 


ARHOREL OF LYONESSE. 


21 


“We shall put up the sail and get back to Samson in twenty 
minutes. There is breeze enough for that.” 

“ Will you tell us,” said the artist, “ before you go, to whom 
we are indebted for our very lives ?” 

“ My name is Armorel.” 

“ May we call upon you ? To-night we are too bewildered. 
We cannot say what we ought and must say.” 

“ I live on Samson. What is your name?” 

“My name is Roland Lee. My friend here is called Dick 
Stephenson.” 

“ You can come if you wish. I shall be glad to see you,” she 
corrected herself, thinking she had been inhospitable and un- 
gracious. 

“ Am I to ask for Miss Armorel ?” 

She laughed merrily. “You will find no one to ask, I am 
afraid. Nobody else, you see, lives on Samsou. When you 
land, just turn to the left, walk over the hill, and you will find 
the house on the other side. Samson is not so big that you can 
miss the house. Good-night, Roland Lee. Good-night, Dick 
Stephenson.” 

“ She’s only a child,” said the young man called Dick, as he 
climbed painfully and fearfully up the dark and narrow steps, 
slippery with seaweed and not even protected by an inner bar. 
“I suppose it doesn’t much matter, since she’s only a child. 
But I merely desire to point out that it’s always the way. If 
there does happen to be an adventure accompanied by a girl 
— most adventures bring along the girl ; nobody cares, in fact, 
for an adventure without a girl in it — I’m put in the background 
and made to do the work while you sit down and talk to the 
girl. Don’t tell me it was accidental. It was the accident of 
design. Hang it all ! I’ll turn painter myself.” 


CHAPTER III. 

IN THE BAR PARLOR. 

At nine o’clock the little bar parlor of Tregarthen’s was nearly 
full. It is a very little room, low as well as little, therefore it is 
easily filled. And though it is the principal club-room of Hugh 


22 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


Town, where the better sort and the notables meet, it can easily 
accommodate them all. They do not, however, meet every even- 
ing, and they do not all come at once. There is a wooden settle 
along the wall, beautifully polished by constant use, which holds 
four ; a smaller one beside the fire, where, at a pinch, two might 
sit ; there is a seat in the window which also might hold two, 
but is only comfortable for one. A small, round table only 
leaves room for one chair. This makes sitting accommodation 
for nine, and when all are present and all nine are smoking to- 
bacco like one, the atmosphere is convivially pungent. This 
evening there were only seven. They consisted of the two 
young men whose perils on the deep you have just witnessed ; 
a justice of the peace — but his office is a sinecure, because on 
the Scilly Isles virtue reigns in every heart ; a flower-farmer of 
the highest standing ; two other gentlemen, weighed down with 
the mercantile anxieties and interests of the place — they ought 
to have been in wigs and square brown coats, with silver buckles 
to their shoes ; and one who held office and exercised authority. 

The art of conversation cannot be successfully cultivated on a 
small island, on board ship, or in a small country town. Con- 
versation requires a continual change of company, and a great 
variety of topics. Your great talker, when he inconsiderately 
remains too long among the same set, becomes a bore. After a 
little, unless he goes away, or dies, or becomes silent, they kill 
him, or lock him up in an asylum. At Tregarthen’s he would 
be made to understand that either he, or the rest of the popula- 
tion, must leave the archipelago and go elsewhere. In some 
colonial circles they play whist, which is an excellent method, 
perhaps the best ever invented, for disguising the poverty or the 
absence of conversation. At Tregarthen’s they do not feel this 
necessity — they are contented with their conversation ; they are 
so happily contented that they do not repine even though they 
get no more than an observation dropped every ten minutes or 
so. They are not anxious to reply hurriedly ; they are even 
contented to sit silently enjoying the proximity of each other — 
the thing, in fact, which lies at the root of all society. The 
evening is not felt to be dull, though there are no fireworks of 
wit and repartee. Indeed, if Douglas Jerrold himself were to 
appear with a bag full of the most sparkling epigrams and rep- 
artees, nobody would laugh, even when he was kicked out into 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


23 


the cold and unappreciative night — the stars have no sense of 
humor — as a punishment for impudence. 

This evening the notables spoke occasionally ; they spoke 
slowly — the Scillonians all talk slowly — they neither attempted 
nor looked for smartness. They did not tell stories, because all 
the stories are known, and they can now only be told to stran- 
gers. The two young men from London listened without taking 
any part in the talk ; people who have just escaped — and that 
narrowly — a sharp and painful death by drowning and banging 
on jagged rocks are expected to be hushed for a while. But 
they listened. And they became aware that the talk, in what- 
ever direction it wandered, always came back to the sea. Every- 
thing in Scilly belongs to the sea. They may go up country — 
which is a journey of a mile and a half, or even two miles — and 
speak for a moment of the crops and the farms ; but that leads 
to the question of import and export, and, therefore, to the ves- 
sels lying within the pier, and to the steam service to Penzance 
and to vessels in other ports, and, generally, to steam service 
about the world. And, again, wherever two or three are gathered 
together in Scilly, one at least will be found to have ploughed 
the seas in distant parts. This confers a superiority on the so- 
ciety of the islands which cannot, even in these days, be denied 
or concealed. In the last century, when a man who was known 
to have crossed the Pacific entered a coffee-house, the company 
with one accord gazed upon him with envy and wonder. Even 
now, familiarity hath not quite bred contempt. We still look 
with unconcealed respect upon one who can tell of Tahiti and 
the New Hebrides, and has stood upon the mysterious shores of 
Papua. And, at Tregarthen’s this evening, these two strangers 
were young ; they had not yet made the circuit of the round 
earth ; they had had, as yet, not many opportunities of talking 
with travellers and sailors. Therefore, they listened, and were 
silent. 

Presently, one after the other, the company got up and went 
out. There is no sitting late at night in Scilly. There were 
left of all only the Permanent Official. 

“ I hear, gentlemen,” he said, “ that you have had rather a 
nasty time this evening.” 

“ We should have been lost,” said the artist, “ but for a — a 
young lady, who saw our danger and came out to us.” 


24 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ Armorel. I saw her towing in your boat and landing you. 
Yes, it was a mighty lucky job that she saw you in time. 
There’s a girl ! Not yet sixteen years old ! Yet I’d rather trust 
myself with her in a boat, especially if she had the boy Peter 
with her, than with any boatman of the islands. And there’s 
not a rock or an islet, not a bay or a headland, in this country of 
bays and capes and rocks that she does not know. She could 
find her way blindfold by the feel of the wind and the force of 
the current. But it’s in her blood. Father to son — father to 
son, and daughter too — the Roseveans are born boatmen.” 

“ She saved our lives,” repeated the artist. “ That is all we 
know of her. It is a good deal to know, perhaps, from our own 
point of view.” 

“ She belongs to Samson. They’ve always lived on Samson. 
Once there were Roseveans, Tryeths, Jenkinses, and Woodcocks 
on Samson. Now, they are nearly all gone — only one family of 
Rosevean left, and one of Tryeth.” 

“ She said that nobody else lived there.” 

“Well, it is only her own family. They’ve started a flower- 
farm lately on Holy Hill, and I hear it’s doing pretty well. It’s 
a likely situation, too, facing southwest and well sheltered. 
You should go and see the flower-farm. Armorel will be glad 
to show you the farm, and the island too. Samson has got a 
good many curious things — more curious, perhaps, than she 
knows, poor child !” 

He paused for a moment, and then continued : “ There’s no- 
body on the island now but themselves. There’s the old woman, 
first — you should see her too. She’s a curiosity by herself — 
Ursula Rosevean — she was a Traverse, and came from Bryher 
to be married. She married Methusalem Rosevean, Armorel’s 
great-great-grandfather — that was nigh upon eighty years ago ; 
she’s close upon a hundred now ; and she’s been a widow since 
— when was it? — I believe she’d only been a wife for twelve 
months or so. He was drowned on a smuggling run — his 
brother Emanuel, too. Widow used to look for him from the 
hill-top every night for a year and more afterwards. A wonderful 
old woman ! Go and look at her. Perhaps she will talk to you. 
Sometimes, when Armorel plays the fiddle, she will brighten up 
and talk for an hour. She knows how to cure all diseases, and 
she can foretell the future. But she’s too old now, and mostly 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


25 


she’s asleep. Then there’s Justinian Tryeth and Dorcas, his 
wife — they’re over seventy, both of them, if they’re a day. 
Dorcas was a St. Agnes girl — that’s the reason why her name 
was Hicks : if she’d come from Bryher she’d have been a Trav- 
erse ; if from Tresco she’d have been a Jenkins. But she was 
a Hicks. She’s as old as her husband, I should say. As for 
the boy, Peter — ” 

“ She called him the boy, I remember. But he seemed to 
me — ” 

“ He’s fifty, but he’s always been the boy. He never married, 
because there was nobody left on Samson for him to marry, and 
he’s always been too busy on the farm to come over here after 
a wife. And he looks more than fifty, because once he fell off 
the pier, head first, into the stern of a boat, and after he’d been 
unconscious for three days all his hair fell off except a few 
stragglers, and they’d turned white. Looks most as old as his 
father. Chessun’s near fifty-two.” 

“ Who is Chessun ?” 

“ She’s the girl. She’s always been the girl. She’s never 
married, just like Peter her brother, because there was no one 
left on Samson for her. And she never leaves the island except 
once or twice a year, when she goes to the afternoon service at 
Bryher. Well, gentlemen, that’s all the people left on Samson. 
There used to be more — a great many more — quite a popula- 
tion, and if all stories are true they were a lively lot. You’ll 
see their cottages standing in ruins. As for getting drowned, 
you’d hardly believe ! Why, take Armorel alone. Her father, 
Emanuel — he’d be about fifty-seven now — he was drowned — 
twelve years ago it must be now — with his wife and his three 
boys, Emanuel, John, and Andrew, crossing over from a wed- 
ding at St. Agnes. He married Rovena Wetherel, from St. 
Mary’s. Then there was her grandfather — he was a pilot — but 
they were all pilots, and he was cast away taking an East-India- 
man up the Channel, cast away on Chesil Bank in a fog — that 
was in the year 1845, and all hands lost. His father, singular 
to relate, died in his bed unexpectedly — you can see the bed 
still — but, they do say, just before some officers came over about 
a little bit of business connected with French brandy. One of 
his sons w T ent away and became a purser in the Royal Navy. 
Those were the days for pursers — their accounts were never 


26 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


audited, and when they’d squared the captain and paid him the 
wages and allowances for the dummies and the dead men, they 
had left as much as a couple of thousand a year. After this he 
left the navy and purveyed for the fleet, and became so rich 
that they had to make him a knight.” 

“ Was there much smuggling here in the old days ?” 

“ Look here, sir ; a Scillonian in the old days called himself 
a pilot, a fisherman, a shopkeeper, or a farmer, just as he pleased. 
That was his pleasant way. But he was always — mind you — a 
smuggler. Armorel’s great-great-great-grandfather, father of the 
old lady’s husband — him who was never heard of afterwards, but 
was supposed to have been cast away off the French coast — he 
was known to have made great sums of money. Never was 
any one on the islands in such a big way. Lots of money came 
to the islands from smuggling. They say that the St. Martin’s 
people have kept theirs, and have got it invested ; but for all 
the rest, it’s gone. And they were wreckers, too. Many and 
many a good ship before the islands were lit up have struck 
on the rocks and gone to pieces. What do you think became 
of the cargoes ? Where were the Scilly boats when the craft 
was breaking up ? And did you never hear of the ship’s lan- 
tern tied to the horns of a cow ? They’ve got one on Samson 
could tell a tale or two ; and they’ve still got a figure-head there 
which ought to have haunted old Emanuel Rosevean when his 
boat capsized off the coast of France.” 

“ An interesting family history.” 

“ Yes. Until the Preventive Service put an end to the trade, 
the Roseveans were the. most successful and the most daring 
smugglers in the islands. But an unlucky family. All these 
drownings make people talk. Old wives’ talk, I dare say. But 
for something one of them did — wrecking a ship — robbing the 
dead — who knows ? — they say the bad luck will go on till some- 
thing is done — I know not what.” 

He got up and put on his cap, the blue-cloth cap with a cloth 
peak much affected in Scilly, because the wind blows off any 
other form of hat ever invented. 

“ It is ten o’clock — I must go. Did you ever hear the story, 
gentlemen, of the Scillonian sailor?” He sat down again. “I 
believe it must have been one of the Roseveans. He was on 
board a West-Indiaman, homeward bound, and the skipper got 


ARMOREL OF LVONESSE. 


27 


into a fog and lost his reckoning. Then he asked this man if 
he knew the Scilly Isles. ‘ Better nor any book,’ says the sailor. 
‘Then,’ says the skipper, ‘take the wheel.’ In an hour crash 
went the ship upon the rocks. ‘ Damn your eyes !’ says the 
skipper, ‘ you said you knew the Scilly Isles.’ ‘ So I do,’ says 
the man. ‘ This is one of ’em.’ The ship went to pieces, and 
near all the hands were lost. But the people of the islands had 
a fine time with the flotsam and the jetsam for a good many 
days afterwards.” 

“ I believe,” said the young man — he who answered to the 
name of Dick — “ that this patriot is buried in the old church- 
yard. I saw an inscription to-day which probably marks his 
tomb. Under the name is written the words, ‘ Dulce et decor’ — 
but the rest is obliterated.” 

“Very likely — they would bury him in the old churchyard. 
Good-night, gentlemen.” 

“ Roland !” The young man called Dick jumped from the 
settle. “ Roland ! Pinch me, shake me, stick a knife into me, 
but not too far — I feel as if I were going off my head. The 
fair Armorel’s father was a corsair, who was drowned on his 
way from the coast of France, with his grandfather and his 
great-grandfather and great-granduncles, after having been cast 
away upon the Chesil Bank, and never heard of again, though 
he was wanted on account of a keg of French brandy picked 
up in the Channel. He made an immense pile of money, which 
has been lost ; and there’s an old lady at the farm so old — so 
old — so very, very old — it takes your breath away only to think 
of it — that she married Methusalem. Her husband was drowned 
— a new light, this, on history — and of course she escaped on 
the Ark — as a stowaway or a cabin passenger? Armorel plays 
the fiddle and makes the old lady jump.” 

“ We’ll go over there to-morrow.” 

“ We will.* It is a Land of Enchantment, this outlying bit of 
Lyonesse. Meanwhile, just to clear my brain, I think I must 
have a whiskey. The weakness of humanity demands it. 

“ ‘ Oh ! ’twas in Trcgarthen’s bar, 

Where the pipes and whiskies are — ’ 

They are an unlucky family,” he went on, “ because they ‘ did 
something.’ Remark, Roland, that here is the very element of 


28 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


romance. My ancestors have ‘ done something,’ too. I am sure 
they have, because my grandfather kept a shop, and you can’t 
keep a shop without 4 doing something.’ But Fate never per- 
secuted my father, the dean, and I am not in much anxiety that 
I too shall be shadowed on account of the old man. Yet look 
at Armorel Rosevean ! There’s Distinction, mind you, in being 
selected by Fate for vicarious punishment. The old corsair 
wrecked a ship and robbed the bodies ; therefore, all his de- 
scendants have got to be drowned. Dear me ! If we were all 
to be drowned because our people had once 1 done something,’ 
the hungry, insatiate sea would be choked, and the world would 
come to an end. A Scotch whiskey, Rebecca, if you please, 
and a seltzer. To-morrow, Roland, we will once more cross the 
raging main, but under protection. If you break an oar again, 
you shall be put overboard. We will visit this fair child of 
Samson. Child of Samson ! The Child of Samson ! Was De- 
lilah her mother, or is she the granddaughter of the Timnite ? 
Has she inherited the virtues of her father as well as his strength ? 
Were the latter days of Delilah sanctified and purified? Hap- 
pily, she is only as yet a child — only a child, Roland” — he em- 
phasized the words — “ although a child of Samson.” 

In the night a vision came to Roland Lee. He saw Armorel 
once more sailing to his rescue. And in his vision he was seized 
with a mighty terror and a shaking of the limbs, and his heart 
sank and his cheek blanched. And he cried aloud, as he sank 
beneath the cold waters: “Oh, Armorel, you have come too 
late I Armorel, you cannot save me now !” 


CHAPTER IV. 

THE GOLDEN TORQUE. 

The morning was bright, the sky blue, the breeze fresh — so 
fresh that even in the road the sea broke over the bows and the 
boat ran almost gunwale under. This time the two landsmen 
were not unprotected ; they were in charge of two boatmen. 
Humiliating, perhaps, but your true courage consisteth not in 
vain boasting and arrogant pretence, and he is safest who doth 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


29 


not ignorantly presume to manage a boat. Therefore, boatmen 
twain now guided the light bark and held the ropes. 

“ Dick,” said Roland, presently, looking ahead, “ I see her. 
There she is — upon the hillside among the brown fern. I can 
see her, with her blue dress.” 

Dick looked and shook his head. 

“ I only see Samson,” he said. “ He groweth bigger as we 
approach. That is not uncommon with islands. I perceive 
that he hath two hills, one on the north and the other on the 
south ; he showeth — perhaps with pride — a narrow plain in the 
middle. The hills appear to be strewn with boulders, and there 
are earns and perhaps Logan stones. There is always a Logan 
stone, but you can never find it. There are also, I perceive, 
ruins. Samson looks quite a large island when you come near 
to it. Life on Samson must be curiously peaceful. No post- 
office, no telegrams, no telephones, no tennis, no shops, no pa- 
pers, no people — good heavens ! For a whole month one would 
enjoy Samson.” 

“ Don’t you see her ?” repeated Roland. “ She is coming 
down the hillside.” 

u I dare say I do see her if I knew it, but I cannot at this 
distance even with assisted eyes — ” 

“ Oh ! a blue dress — blue — against the brown and yellow of 
the fern — can you not — ” 

Dick gazed with the slow, uncertain eyes of short sight, and 
adjusted his glasses. 

“ My pal,” he said, “ to please you I would pretend to see 
anything. In fact, I always do. It saves trouble. I see her 
plainly — blue dress, you say — certainly — sitting on a rock — ” 

“ Nonsense ! She is walking down the hill. You don’t see 
her at all.” 

“ Quite so. Coming down the hill,” Dick replied, unmoved. 

“ She has been in my mind all night. I have been thinking 
all kinds of things — impossible things — about this nymph. She 
is not in the least common, to begin with. She is — ” 

u She is only a child, Roland. Don’t — ” 

“ A child ? Why shouldn’t she be a child ? I suppose I may 
admire a beautiful child ? Do you insinuate that I am going to 
make love to her ?” 

“ Well, old man, you mostly do.” 


30 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ It was not so dark, last night, but one could see that she is 
a very beautiful girl. She looks eighteen, hut our friend last 
night assured us that she is not yet sixteen. A very beautiful 
girl she is.: features regular, and a head that ought to be mod- 
elled. She is dark, like a Spaniard.” 

“ Gypsy, probably. Name of Stanley or Smith — Pharaoh Stan- 
ley was, most likely, her papa.” 

“ Gypsy yourself ! Who ever heard of a gypsy on Scilly ? 
You might as well look for an organ-grinder ! Spanish blood, 
I swear ! Castilian of the deepest blue. Then her eyes ! You 
didn’t observe her eyes ?” 

“ 1 was too hungry. Besides, as usual, I was doing all the 
work.” 

“ They are black eyes — ” 

“The Romany have black eyes — roving eyes — hard, bold, 
bad, black eyes.” 

“ Soft black — not hard black. The dark velvet eyes which 
hold the light. Dick, I should like to paint those eyes. She 
is now looking at our boat. 1 can see her lifting her hand to 
shade her eyes. I should like to paint those eyes just at the 
moment when she gives away her heart.” 

“You cannot, Childe Roland, because there could only be one 
other person present on that interesting occasion. And that 
person must not be you.” 

“ Dick, too often you are little better than an ass.” 

“ If you painted those eyes when she was giving away her 
heart it might lead to another and a later picture when she was 
giving away her temper. Eyes which hold the light also hold 
the fire. You might be killed with lightning, or, at least, blind- 
ed with excess of light. Take care !” 

“ Better be blinded with excess of light than pass by insen- 
sible. Some men are worse than the fellow with the muck-rake. 
He was only insensible to a golden-crown ; they are insensible 
to Venus. Without loveliness, where is love? Without love, 
what is life ?” 

“ Yet,” said Dick, dryly, “ most of us have got to shape our 
lives for ourselves before we can afford to think of Venus.” 

It will be understood that these two young men represented 
two large classes of humanity. One would not go so far as to 
say that mankind may be divided into those two classes only ; 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


31 


but, undoubtedly, they arc always with us. First, the young 
man who walketh humbly, doing his appointed task with hon- 
esty, and taking with gratitude any good thing that is bestowed 
upon him by Fate. Next, the young man who believes that the 
whole round world and all that therein is are created for his 
own special pleasure and enjoyment ; that for him the lovely 
girls attire themselves, and for his pleasure go forth to dance 
and ball ; for him the actress plays her best ; for him the feasts 
are spread, the corks are popped, the fruits are ripened, the 
sun shines. To the former class belonged Dick Stephenson ; 
to the latter, Roland Lee. Indeed, the artistic temperament not 
uncommonly enlists a young man in the latter class. 

“ Look !” cried the artist. “ She sees us. She is coming 
down the hill. Even you can see her now. Oh ! the light, 
elastic step ! Nothing in the world more beautiful than the 
light, elastic step of a girl. Somehow, I don’t remember it 
in pictures. Perhaps — some day — I may — ■” He began to 
talk in unconnected jerks. “As for the Greek maiden by the 
sea-shore playing at ball and showing bony shoulders, and all 
that — I don’t like it. Only very young girls should play at ball 
and jump about — not women grown and formed. They may 
walk or spring as much as they like, but they must not jump, 
and they must not run. They must not laugh loud. Violent 
emotions are masculine. Figure and dress alike make violence 
ungraceful ; that is why I don’t like to see women jump about. 
If they knew how it uglifies most of them ! Armorel is only a 
child — yes — but how graceful, how complete she is in her 
movements !” 

She was now visible, even to a short-sighted man, tripping 
lightly through the fern on the slope of the hill. As she ran, 
she tossed her arms to balance herself from boulder to boulder. 
She was singing, too, but those in the boat could not hear her ; 
and before the keel touched the sand she was silent. 

She stood waiting for them on the beach, her old dog Jack 
beside her, a smile of welcome in her eyes, and the sunlight on 
her cheeks. Hebe herself, who remained always fifteen from 
prehistoric times until the melancholy catastrophe of the fourth 
century, when with the other Olympians she was snuffed out, 
was not sweeter, more dainty, or stronger or more vigorous of 
aspect. 


32 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ I thought you would come across this morning,” she said. 
“ I went to the top of the hill and looked out, and presently I 
saw your boat. You have not ventured out alone again, I see. 
Good-morning, Roland Lee. Good-morning, Dick Stephenson.” 

She called them thus by their Christian names, not with fa- 
miliarity, but quite naturally, and because when she went into the 
world — that is to say, to Bryher Church — on Sunday afternoon, 
each called unto each by his Christian name. And to each she 
gave her hand with a smile of welcome. But it seemed to Dick, 
who was observant rather than jealous, that his companion ap- 
propriated to himself and absorbed both smiles. 

“ Shall I show you Samson ? Have you seen the islands yet ?” 

No ; they had only arrived two days before, and were going 
back the next day. 

“ Many do that,” said the girl. “ They stay here a day or 
two ; they go across to Tresco and see the gardens ; then per- 
haps they walk over Sallakey Down, and they see Peninnis and 
Porthellick and the old church — and they think they have seen 
the islands. You will know nothing whatever about Scilly if 
you go to-morrow.” 

“ Why should we go to-morrow ?” asked the artist. “ Tell 
me that, Dick.” 

“ I, because my time is up, and Somerset House once more 
expects me. You, my friend,” Dick replied, with meaning, 
“ because you have got your work to do and you must not fool 
around any longer.” 

Roland Lee laughed. “We came first of all,” he said, turn- 
ing to Armorel, “ in order to thank you for — ” 

“ Oh ! You thanked me last night. Besides, it was Peter — ” 

“ No, no. I refuse to believe in Peter.” 

“Well ; do not let us say any more about it. Come with me.” 

The landing-place of Samson is a flat beach, covered with a 
fine white sand and strewn with little shells — yellow and gray, 
green and blue. Behind the beach is a low bank on which grow 
the sea-holly, the sea-lavender, the horned poppy, and the spurge, 
and behind the bank stretches a small plain, low and sandy, raised 
above the high tide by no more than a foot or two. Armorel 
led the way across this plain to the foot of the northern hill. It 
is a rough and rugged hill, wild and uncultivated. The slope 
facing the south is covered with gorsc and fern, the latter brown 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


33 


and yellow in September. Among the fern at this season 
stood the tall dead stalks of foxglove. Here and there were 
patches of short turf set about with the withered flowers of the 
seapink, and the long branches of the bramble lay trailing over 
the ground. The hand of some prehistoric giant has sprinkled 
the slopes of this hill with boulders of granite ; they are piled 
above each other so as to make earns, headlands, and capes with 
strange resemblances and odd surprises. Upon the top they 
found a small plateau sloping gently to the north. 

“ See !” said Armorel. “ This is the finest thing we have to 
show on Samson, or on any of the islands. This is the burial- 
place of the kings. Here are their tombs.” 

“ What kings ?” asked Hick, looking about him. “ Where 
are the tombs ?” 

“ The kings,” Roland repeated. “ There can bo no other 
kings. These are their tombs. Ho not interrupt.” 

“ The ancient kings,” Armorel replied with historic precision. 
“ These mounds are their tombs. See — one — two — half a dozen 
of them are here. Only kings had barrows raised over them. 
Hid you expect graves and headstones, Hick Stephenson ?” 

“ Oh, these are barrows, are they ?” he replied, in some con- 
fusion. A man of the world does not expect to be caught in 
ignorance by the solitary inhabitant of a desert island. 

“ A long time ago,” Armorel went on, “ these islands formed 
part of the mainland. Bryher and Tresco, St. Helen’s, Tean, 
and St. Martin’s — and St. Mary’s — were all joined together, and 
the road was only a creek of the sea. Then the sea washed away 
all the land between Scilly and the Land’s End. They used to 
call the place Lyonesse. The kings of Lvonesse were buried 
on Samson. Their kingdom is gone, but their graves remain. 
It is said that their ghosts have been seen. Horcas saw them 
once.” 

“ I should like to see them very much,” said Roland. 

“ If you were here at night, we could go out and look for 
them. I have been here often after dark looking for them.” 

“ What did you see ?” 

She answered like unto the bold Sir Bedivere — who, perhaps, 
was standing not far from this hill-top : 

“ I saw the moonlight on the rocks, and I heard the beating 
of the waves.” 

2 * 


34 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


Quoth Dick : “ The spook of a king of Lyonesse would be in- 
deed worth coming out to see.” 

Armorel led the way to a barrow, the top of which showed 
signs of the spade. 

“ See !” she said. “ Here is one that has been opened. It 
was a long time ago.” 

There were the four slabs of stone still in position which 
formed the sides of the grave, and the slab which had been 
its cover lying close beside. 

Armorel looked into the grave. “They found,” she whis- 
pered, “ the bones of the king lying on the stone. But when some 
one touched them they turned to dust. There is the dust at your 
feet in the grave. The wind cannot bear it away. It may blow 
the sand and earth into it, but the dust remains. The rain can 
turn it into mud, but it cannot melt it. This is the dust of a king.” 

The young men stood beside her silent, awed a little, partly 
by the serious look in the girl’s face and partly because, though it 
now lay open to the wind and rain, it was really a grave. One must 
not laugh beside the grave of a man. The wind lifted Armorel’s 
long locks and blew them off her white forehead ; her eyes were 
sad and even solemn. Even the short-sighted Dick saw that his 
friend was right : they were soft black eyes, not of the gypsy 
kind ; and he repented him of a hasty inference. To the artist 
it seemed as if here was a princess of Lyonesse mourning over 
the grave of her buried king and — what ? father — brother — cou- 
sin — lover? Everything, in his imagination, vanished — except 
that one figure ; even her clothes were changed for the raiment 
— say the court mourning — of that vanished realm. And also, 
like Sir Bedivere, he heard nothing but the wild water lapping 
on the crag. 

And here followed a thing so strange that the historian hesi- 
tates about putting it down. 

Let us remember that it is thirty years, or thereabouts, since 
this barrow was laid open; that we may suppose those who 
opened it to have had eyes in their heads ; that it has been ly- 
ing open ever since ; and that every visitor — to be sure, there 
are not many — who lands on Samson is bound to climb this 
hill and visit this open barrow with its perfect kist-vaen. These 
things borne in mind, it will seem indeed wonderful that any- 
thing in the grave should have escaped discovery. 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


35 


Roland Lee, leaning over, began idly to poke about the mould 
and dust of the grave with his stick. lie was thinking of the 
girl and of the romance with which his imagination had already 
clothed this lonely spot ; he was also thinking of a picture which 
might be made of her ; he was wondering what excuse he could 
make for staying another week at Tregarthen’s — when he was 
startled by striking his stick against metal. He knelt down and 
felt about with his hands. Then he found something and drew 
it out, and arose with the triumph that belongs to an archaeologist 
who picks up an ancient thing — say, a rose noble in a newly 
ploughed field. The thing which he found was a hoop or ring ; 
it w T as covered and incrusted with mould; he rubbed this off 
with his fingers. Lo ! it was of gold : a hoop of gold as thick 
as a lady’s little finger, twisted spirally, bent into the form of a 
circle, the two ends not joined, but turned back. Pure gold ; 
yellow, soft gold. 

“ I believe,” he said, gasping, “ that this must be — is a torque. 
I think I have seen something like it in museums. And I’ve 
read of them. It was your king’s necklace ; it was buried with 
him ; it lay around the skeleton neck all these thousand years. 
Take it, Miss Armorel. It is yours.” 

“ No ! no ! Let me look at it. Let me have it in my hands. 
It is yours ” — in ignorance of ancient law an<i the rights of the 
lord proprietor — “ it is yours, because you found it.” 

u Then I will give it to you, because you are the princess of 
the island.” 

She took it with a blush and placed it round her own neck, 
bending open the ends and closing them again. It lay there — 
the red, red gold — as if it belonged to her and had been made 
for her. 

“ The buried king is your ancestor,” said Roland. “ It is his 
legacy to his descendant. Wear the king’s necklace.” 

“ My luck, as usual,” grumbled Dick, aside. “ Why couldn’t I 
find a torque and say pretty things ?” 

“ Come,” said Armorel, “ we have seen the barrows. There are 
others scattered about — but this is the best place for them. 
Now I will show you the island.” 

The hill slopes gently northward till it reaches a headland or 
earn of granite boldly projecting. Here it breaks away sharply 
to the sea. Armorel climbed lightly up the earn and stood upon 


36 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


tlie highest boulder, a pretty figure against the sky. The young 
men followed and stood below her. 

At their feet the waves broke in white foam — in the calmest 
weather the Atlantic surge rolling over the rocks is broken into 
foam ; a broad sound or channel lay between Samson and the 
adjacent island ; in the channel half a dozen rocks and islets 
showed black and threatening. 

“ The island across the channel,” said Armorel, “ is Bryher. 
This is Bryher Hill, because it faces Bryher Island. Yonder, 
on Bryher, is Samson Hill, because it faces Samson Island. 
Bryher is a large place. There are houses and farms on Bryher, 
and a church where they have service every Sunday afternoon. 
If you were here on Sunday, you could go in our boat with Peter, 
Chessun, and me. Justinian and Dorcas mostly stay at home 
now because they are old.” 

“ Can anybody stay on the island, then ?” asked Roland, quickly. 

“ Once the doctor came for Justinian’s rheumatism, and bad 
weather began and he had to stay a w^eek.” 

“His other patients meanly took advantage and got well, I 
suppose,” said Dick. 

“ I hope so,” Armorel replied simply. 

She turned and looked to the northeast, where lie the eastern 
islands, the group between St. Martin’s and St. Mary’s, a miniature 
in little of the greater group. From this point they looked to 
the eye of ignorance like one island. Armorel distinguished them. 
There were Great and Little Arthur ; Ganilly, with his two hills, 
like Samson ; the Ganninicks and Meneweather, Ragged Island, 
and Inisvouls. 

“ They are not inhabited,” said the girl, pointing to them one 
by one ; “ but it is pleasant to row about among them in fine 
weather. In the old time, when they made kelp, people would go 
and live there for weeks together. But they are not cultivated.” 

Then she turned northward, and showed them the long island 
of St. Martin’s, with its white houses, its church, its gentle hills, 
and its white-and-red Daymark on the highest point. Half of 
St. Martin’s was hidden by Tresco, and more than a half of 
Tresco by Bryher. Over the downs of Tresco rose the dome 
of Round Island, crowned with its white lighthouse. And over 
Bryher, out at sea, showed the rent and jagged crest of the great 
rock Menovawr. 







“Armor el climbed lightly up the cam and stood upon the highest boulder 























ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


37 


“You should land on Tresco,” said Armorel. “There is the 
church to see. Oh ! it is a most beautiful church. They say 
that in Cornwall itself there is hardly any church so fine as Tresco 
Church. And then there are the gardens and the lake. Every- 
body goes to see the gardens, but they do not walk over the 
Down to Cromwell’s Castle. Yet there is nothing in the islands 
like Cromwell’s Castle, standing on the Sound, with Shipman’s 
Head beyond. And you must go out beyond Tresco to the 
islands which we cannot see here — Tean and St. Helen’s and 
the rest.” 

Then she turned westward. Lying scattered among the bright 
waters, whitened by the breeze, there lay before their eyes — dots 
and specks upon the biggest maps, but here great massive rocks 
and rugged islets piled with granite, surrounded by ledges and 
reefs, cut and carved by winds and flying foam into ragged edges, 
bold peaks, and defiant cliffs — places where all the year round 
the seals play and the sea-gulls scream, and, in spring, the puffins 
lay their eggs, with the oyster-catchers and the sherewaters, the 
shags and the herne. Over all shone the golden sun of September, 
and round them all the water leaped and sparkled in the light. 

“ Those are the Outer Islands.” The girl pointed them out, 
her eyes brightening. “It is among the Outer Islands that I 
like best to sail. Look, that great rock with the ledge at foot 
is Castle Bryher ; that noble rock beyond is Maiden Bower ; 
the rock farthest out is Scilly. If you were going to stay we 
would sail round Scilly and watch the waves always tearing at 
his sides. You cannot see from here, but he is divided by a 
narrow channel ; the water always rushes through this channel 
roaring and tearing. But once we found it calm — and we got 
through — only Peter would never try again. If you were going 
to stay — sometimes in September it is very still — ” 

“ I did not know,” said Roland, “ that there was anything near 
England so wonderful and so lovely.” 

“You cannot see the islands in one morning. You cannot 
see half of them from this hill. You like them more and more 
as you stay longer, and see them every day with a different light 
and a different sea.” 

“You know them all, I suppose ?” Roland asked. 

“ Oh ! every one. If you had sailed among them so often you 
would know them too. There are hundreds, and every one has 


38 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


got its name. I tliink I have stood on all, though there are some 
on which no one can land even at low tide and in the calmest 
weather. And no one knows what beautiful bays and beaches 
and headlands there are hidden away and never seen by any one. 
If you could stay I would show them to you. But since you 
cannot — ” She sighed. “Well, you have not even seen the 
whole of Samson yet — and that is only one of all the rest.” 

She leaped lightly from the rocks and led them southward. 

“ See !” she said. “ On this hill there are ten great barrows 
at least — every one the tomb of a king — a king of Lyonesse. 
And on the sides of the hill — they kept the top for the kings — 
there are smaller barrows, I suppose, of the princes and princesses. 
I told you that the island was a royal burying-ground. At the 
foot of the hill — you can see them — are some walls which they 
say are the ruins of a church, but I suppose that in those days 
they had no church.” 

They left these venerable tombs behind them and descended 
the hill. At its foot, between the two hills, there lies a pretty 
little bay, circular and fringed with a beach of white sand. If 
one wanted a port for Samson, here is the spot, looking straight 
across the Atlantic, with Mincarlo lying like a lion couchant on 
the water a mile out. 

“ This is Porth Bay,” said their guide. “ Out there at the 
end is Shark Point. There are sharks sometimes, I believe, 
but I have never seen them. Now we are going up the South- 
ern Hill.” 

It began with a gentle ascent. There were signs of former 
cultivation : stone walls remained, enclosing spaces which once 
were fields ; nothing in them now but fern and gorse and bram- 
ble and wild flowers. Half-way up there stood a ruined cottage. 
The walls were standing, but the roof was gone, and all the 
woodwork. The garden wall remained, but the little garden 
was overrun with fern. 

“ This was my great-great-grandmother’s cottage,” said Ar- 
morel. “It was built by her husband. They lived in it for 
twelve months after they were married. Then he was drowned, 
and she came to live at the farm. See !” — she showed them in 
a corner of the garden a little wizened apple-tree crouching 
under the stone wall out of the reach of the north wind. “ She 
planted this tree on her wedding-day. It is too old now to 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


39 


bear fruit, but sbe is still living, and her husband has been dead 
for seventy-five years. I often come to look at the place and to 
wonder how it looked when it was first inhabited. There were 
flowers, I suppose, in the garden when she was young and happy.” 

“ There are more ruins,” said Roland. 

“ Yes, there are other ruins. When all the people except 
ourselves went away these cottages were deserted, and so they 
fell into decay. They used to live by smuggling and wrecking, 
you see, and when they could no longer do either they had to 
go away or starve.” 

They stood upon the highest point of Holy Hill, some twenty 
feet above the summit of the Northern Hill, and looked out 
upon the southern islands. 

“ There !” said Armorel with a flush of pride, because the 
view here is so different and yet so lovely. u Here you can see 
the South Islands. Look ! there is Minalto, which you drifted 
past yesterday ; those are the ledges of White Island, where 
you were nearly cast away and lost ; there is Annet, where the 
sea-birds lay their eggs — oh ! thousands and thousands of puffins, 
though now there are not any — you should see them in the 
spring. That is St. Agnes — a beautiful island. I should like 
to show you Camberdizl and St. Warna’s Cove. And there are 
the Dogs of Scilly beyond — they look to be black spots from 
here. You should see them close ; then you would understand 
how big they are and how terrible. There are Gorregan and 
Daisy, Rosevean and Rosevear, Crebawethan and Pednathias, 
and there — where you see a little circle of white — that is Re- 
tarrier Ledge. Not long ago there was a great ship coming 
slowly up the Channel in bad weather ; she was filled with Ger- 
mans from New York going home to spend the money they had 
saved in America ; most of them had their money with them 
tied up in bags. Suddenly the ship struck on Retarrier. It 
was ten o’clock in the evening, and a great sea running. For 
two hours the ship kept bumping on the rocks ; then she began 
to break up, and they were all drowned — all the women and all 
the children, and most of the men. Some of them had life-belts 
on, but they did not know how to tie them, and so the things 
only slipped down over their legs and helped to drown them. 
The money was found on them. In the old days the people of 
the islands would have had it all ; but the coastguard took care 


40 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


of it. There, on the right of Retarrier, is the Bishop’s Rock 
and lighthouse. In storms, the lighthouse rocks like a tree in 
the wind. You ought to sail over to those rocks, if it was only 
to see the surf dashing up their sides. But, since you cannot 
stay — ” And again she sighed. 

“ These are very interesting islands,” said Dick. “ Especially 
is it interesting to consider the consequences of being a native.” 

“ I should like to stay and sail among them,” said Roland. 

“ For instance ” — Dick pursued his line of thought — “ in the 
study of geography. We who are from the inland parts of 
Great Britain must begin by learning the elements, the defini- 
tions, the terminology. Now, to a Scilly boy — ” 

“A Scillonian,” the girl corrected him. “We never speak 
of Scilly folk.” 

“ Naturally. To a Scillonian no explanation is needed. He 
knows, without being told, the meaning of peninsula, island, 
bay, shore, archipelago, current, tide, cape, headland, ocean, 
lake, road, harbor, reef, lighthouse, beacon, buoy, sounding — 
everything. He must know, also, what is meant by a gale of 
wind, a stiff breeze, a dead calm. He recognizes, by the look 
of it, a lively sea, a chopping sea, a heavy sea, a roaring sea, a 
sulky sea. He knows everything except a river. That, I sup- 
pose, requires very careful explanation. It was a Scilly youth 
— I mean a Scillonian — who sakdown on the river bank to wait 
for the water to go by. The history seems to prove the com- 
mercial intercourse which in remote antiquity took place be- 
tween Phoenicia and the Cassiterides of Scilly Islands.” 

Armorel looked puzzled. 

“ I did not know that story of a Scillonian and a river,” she 
said coldly. 

“ Never mind his stories,” said Roland. “ This place is a 
story in itself ; you are a story ; we are all in fairyland.” 

“ No,” she shook her head. “ Bryher is the only island in 
all Scilly which has any fairies. They call them pixies, there. 
I do not think that fairies would ever like to come and live on 
Samson ; because of the graves, you know.” 

She led them down the hill along a path worn by her own 
feet alone, and brought them out to the level space occupied by 
the farm-buildings. 

“ This is where we live,” she said. “ If you could stay here, 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


41 


Roland Lee, we could give you a room. We have many empty 
rooms” — she sighed — “since my father and mother and my 
brothers were all drowned. Will you come in ?” 

She took them into the “ best parlor,” a room which struck a 
sudden chill to any one who entered therein. It was the room 
reserved for days of ceremony — for a wedding, a christening, 
or a funeral. Between these events the room was never used. 
The furniture presented the aspect common to “best parlors,” 
being formal and awkward. In one corner stood a bookcase 
with glass doors, filled with books. Armorel showed them into 
this apartment, drew up the blind, opened the window — there 
was certainly a stuffiness in the air — and looked about the room 
with evident pride. Few best parlors, she thought, in the ad- 
jacent islands of St. Mary’s, Bryher, Tresco, or even Great Britain 
itself, could beat this. 

She left them for a few minutes, and came back bearing a 
tray on which were a plate of apples, another of biscuits, and a 
decanter full of a very black liquid. Hospitality has its rules 
even on' Samson, whither come so few visitors. 

“Will you taste our Scilly apples?” she said. “These are 
from our own orchard, behind the house. You will find them 
very sweet.” 

Roland took one — as a general rule this young man would 
rather take a dose of medicine than an apple — and munched it 
with avidity. 

“A delicious fruit!” he cried. But his friend refused the 
proffered gift. 

“ Then you will take a biscuit, Dick Stephenson ? Nothing ? 
At least, a glass of wine ?” 

“ Never in the morning, thank you.” 

“ You will, Roland Lee ?” She turned, with a look of disap- 
pointment, to the other man, who was so easily pleased, and 
who said such beautiful things. “ It is my own wine — I made 
it myself, last year, 'of ripe blackberries.” 

“Indeed I will! Your own wine? Your own making, Miss 
Armorel ? Wine of Samson — the glorious vintage of the black- 
berry ! In pies and in jampots I know the blackberry — but 
not, as yet, in decanters. Thank you, thank you.” 

He smiled heroically while he held the glass to the light, 
smelt it, rolled it gently round. Then he tasted it. 


42 


AHMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


‘‘Sweet,” he said critically. “And strong. Clings to the 
palate. A liqueur wine — a curious wine.” He drank it up, 
and smiled again. “ Your own making ! It is wonderful ! No 
— not another drop, thank you.” 

“ Shall I show you ” — the girl asked timidly — “ would you 
like to see my great-great-grandmother ? She is so very old 
that the people come all the way from St. Agnes only just to 
look at her. Sometimes she answers questions for them, and 
they think it is telling their fortunes. She is asleep. But you 
may talk aloud. You will not awaken her. She is so very, 
very old, you know. Consider : she has been a widow nearly 
eighty years.” 

She led them into the other room, where, in effect, the ancient 
dame sat in her hooded chair fast asleep, in cap and bonnet, her 
hands, in black mittens, crossed. 

“ Heavens !” Roland murmured. “ What a face ! I must 
draw that face. And ” — he looked at the girl bending over the 
chair, placing a pillow in position — “ and that other. It is won- 
derful,” he said aloud. “ This is, indeed, the face of one who 
has lived a hundred vears. Does she sometimes wake up and 
talk?” 

“ In the evening she recovers her memory for a while and 
talks — sometimes quite nicely, sometimes she rambles.” 

“ And you have a spinning-wheel in the corner.” 

“ She likes some one to work at the spinning-wheel while she 
talks. Then she thinks it is the old time back again.” 

“ And there is a violin.” 

“ I play it in the evening. It keeps her awake, and helps her 
to remember. Justinian taught me. He used to play very well 
indeed until his fingers grew stiff. I can play a great many 
tunes, but it is difficult to learn any new ones. Last summer 
there were some ladies at Tregarthen’s — one of them had a most 
beautiful voice, and she used to sing in the evening with the 
window open. I used to sail across on purpose to land and 
listen outside. And I learned a very pretty tune. I would 
play it to you in the evening if you were not going away.” 

“ I am not obliged to go away,” the young man said with 
strangely flushing cheeks. 

“ Roland !” That was Dick’s voice — but it was unheeded. 

“ Will you stay here, then ?” the girl asked. 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


43 


“ Here in this house ? In your house ?” 

“ You can have my brother Emanuel’s room. I shall be very 
glad if you will stay. And I will show you everything.” 

She did not invite the young man called Dick, but this other, 
the young man who drank her wine and ate her apple. 

“ If your — your — your guardian — or your great-great-grand- 
mother approves.” 

“ Oh I she will approve. Stay, Roland Lee. We will make 
you very happy here. And you don’t know what a lot there is 
to see.” 

“ Roland !” Again Dick’s warning voice. 

“ A thousand thanks 1” he said. u I will stay.” 


CHAPTER Y. 

THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. 

The striking of seven by the most sonorous and musical of 
clocks ever heard reminded Roland of the dinner-hour. At 
seven most of us are preparing for this function, which civiliza- 
tion has converted almost into an act of praise and worship. 
Some men, he remembered, were now walking in the direction 
of the club ; some were dressing ; some were making for res- 
taurants; some had already begun. One naturally associates 
seven o’clock with the anticipation of dinner. There are men, 
it is true, who habitually take in food at midday and call it din- 
ner ; there are also those who have no dinner at all. He began 
to realize that he was not, this evening, going to have any din- 
ner at all. For he was now at the farmhouse, sitting in the 
square window with Armorel ; he had obtained that permission 
which he sought; he had gone back to Tregarthen’s and re- 
turned with his portmanteau and his painting gear ; fortunately 
he had also taken an abundant lunch at that establishment. He 
had become an inhabitant of Samson. The increased popula- 
tion, therefore, now consisted of seven souls. 

In fact, there was no dinner for him. Everybody in Samson 
dines at half-past twelve ; he had tea with Armorel at half-past 
four ; after tea they wandered along the shore, and stood upon 
Shark Point to sec the sun set behind Mincarlo, an operation 


44 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


performed with zeal and despatch and with great breadth and 
largeness of coloring. When the shades of evening began to 
prevail they were fain to get home quickly, because there is no 
path among the boulders, nor have former inhabitants provided 
hand-rails for visitors on the cams. Therefore they retraced 
their steps to the farm, and Armorel left him sitting alone in 
the square window while she went about some household 
duties. In the v quiet room the solemn clock told the moments, 
and there was light enough left to discern the ghostly figure of 
the ancient dame sleeping in her chair. The place was so quiet 
and so strange that the visitor presently felt as if he were sitting 
among ghosts. It is at twilight, in fact, that the spirits of the 
past make themselves most readily felt, if not seen. Now, it 
was exactly as if he had been in the place before. He knew, 
now, why he had been so suddenly and strangely attracted to 
Samson. He had been there before — when, or under what con- 
ditions, he knew not, and did not ask himself. It is a condi- 
tion of the mind known to everybody. A touch — a word — a 
look — and we are transported back — how many years ago ? The 
hills, the rocks, the house, Armorel herself — all were familiar to 
him. The thing was absurd, yet in his mind it was quite clear. 
It was so absurd that he thought his mind was wandering ; and 
he arose and went out into the garden. There, the figure-head 
of the woman under the tall fuchsia-tree — the glow from the 
fire in the sitting-room fell upon the face through the window — 
seemed to smile upon him as upon an old friend. He went 
back again and sat down. Where was Armorel ? 

This strange familiarity with an unknown place quickly 
passes, though it may return. He now began to feel as if, 
perhaps, he was making a mistake. He was living on an island 
with, practically, no other companion than a girl of fifteen. 
Dick, who had become suddenly grumpy on learning his reso- 
lution to stay, might be right. Well, he would sketch and 
paint ; he would be very careful ; not a word should be said 
that might tend to disturb the child’s tranquillity. No — Dick 
was a fool. He was going to have a day or two — just a day or 
two — of quiet happiness. The girl was young and beautiful 
and innocent. She was also made happy — she showed that 
happiness without an attempt at concealment — because he was 
going to stay. What would follow ? 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


45 


Well, it was an adventure. One does not ask what is going 
to follow on first encountering an adventure. What young 
man, besides, sallying forth upon a simple holiday, looks to find 
himself upon a deserted island with no other companion than 
a trustful and an admiring maiden of fifteen ? 

Then Armorel returned and took a chair beside him. He 
was a little surprised — but then, on a desert island, nothing 
happens as on terra firma — that she did not ring for lights, and 
was still not without some hope of dinner. They took up the 
thread of talk about the islands, concerning which Roland Lee 
perceived that he would before long know a good deal. Local 
knowledge is always interesting ; but it does not, except to nov- 
elists, possess a marketable value. One cannot, for instance, at 
a dinner-party, turn the conversation on the respective families 
of St. Agnes and St. Martin’s. He made a mental note that he 
would presently change the subject to one of deeper personal 
interest. Perhaps he could get Armorel to talk about herself. 
That would be very much more interesting than to hear about 
the three Pipers’ Holes of Tresco, White, and St. Mary’s islands. 
How did she live — this girl — and what did she do — and what 
did she think ? 

Meantime, while the girl herself was talking of the rocks and 
bays, the crags and coves, the white sand and the gray granite, 
the seals and the shags, the puffins and the dottrells, she was 
wondering, for her part, what manner of man this was — how he 
lived, and what he did, and what he thought. For when man 
and woman meet they are clothed and covered up; they are a 
mystery each to the other ; never, since the Fall, have we been 
able to read each other’s hearts. 

But when the clock struck seven Armorel sprang to her feet, 
as one who hath a serious duty to perform, and preparations to 
make for it. 

First she pulled down the blind, and so shut out what was 
left of the twilight. The fire had sunk low, but by its light she 
was dimly visible. She pushed back the table ; she placed two 
chairs opposite the old lady, and another chair before the spin- 
ning-wheel. 

“ Something,” said the young man to himself, “ is certainly 
going to happen. One can no longer hope for dinner. Family 
prayers, perhaps ; or the worship of the old lady as an ancestor. 


46 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


The descendants of the ancient people of Lyonesse no doubt 
bow down to the sun and dance to the moon, and pass the chil- 
dren through the holed stone, and make Baal fires, and worship 
their grandmothers. But family prayers, most likely.” 

Armorel took down the fiddle that hung on the wall and be- 
gan to tune it, twanging the strings and drawing the bow across 
in the manner which so pleasantly excites the theatre before the 
music begins. 

“ Not family prayers, then,” said the young man, perhaps 
disappointed. 

What did happen, however, was a series of things quite 
new and wholly unexpected. Never was known such a desert 
island. 

First of all, the lady of many generations moved uneasily in 
her sleep at the twanging of the strings, and her fingers clutched 
at her dress, as if she were startled by an uneasy dream. 

And then the door opened — and a small procession of three 
came it. At this point, had the young man been a Roman 
Catholic, he would have crossed himself. As he was not, he 
only started, and murmured, 

“ As I thought. The worship of the ancestor ! These are 
the ghosts of the grandfather and the grandmother. The old 
lady is a mummy. They are all ghosts — I shall presently awake 
and find myself on my back among the barrows.” 

First came an ancient dame, but not so ancient as she of the 
great chair. Gray-headed she was, and equipped in a large 
cap ; wrinkled was her face, and her chin, for lack of teeth, ap- 
proached her nose, quite in the ancestral manner. She was 
followed by an old man, also gray-headed and gray-bearded, 
wrinkled of face, his shoulders bent and twisted with rheuma- 
tism, his fingers gnarled and twisted. These two took the 
chairs set for them by Armorel. The third in the procession 
was a woman already elderly, and with streaks of gray in her 
hair. She was thin and sharp-faced. She sat down before the 
spinning-wheel and began to work, not as you may now see the 
amateur, but in the quiet, quick, professional manner which 
means business. 

The stranger was not quite right in his conjecture. They 
were not ancestors. The old man, who had worked on the 
farm, man and boy, for nearly seventy years, and now managed 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


47 


it altogether, was Justinian Tryeth. The old woman was Dor- 
cas, his wife. The middle-aged woman was their daughter 
Chessun, who had been maid on the farm, as her brother Peter 
had been boy, all her life. 

Whatever was intended was clearly a daily function, because 
each dropped into place without hesitation. The old woman 
had brought some knitting with her, her daughter picked up 
the thread of the spindle, and the old man, taking the tongs, 
stimulated the coals into a flame, which he continually nursed 
and maintained with new fuel. There was neither lamp nor 
candle in the room ; the ruddy firelight, rising and falling, 
played about the room, warming the drab panels into crimson, 
sinking into the dark beams of the joists, flashing among the 
china in the cupboard, painting red the Venus’s-fingers in the 
cabinet, and throwing strange lights and shadows upon the aged 
lady in the chair. Was she really alive ? Was she, after all, 
only a mummy ? 

Roland looked on, breathless. What was to be done next? 
Time had gone back eighty years — a hundred and eighty years 
— any number of years. As they sat here in the firelight with 
the spinning-wheel, the old serving people with their mistress, 
without lamp or candle, so they sat in the generations long gone 
by. And again that curious feeling fell upon him that he had 
seen it all before. Yet he could not remember what was to be 
done next. Armorel, the tuning complete, turned, with a look 
of inquiry, to the old man. 

“ i Singleton’s Slip,’ ” he commanded, with the authority of 
a professor. 

The girl began to play this old tune. Perhaps you remember 
the style of the fiddler — he is getting scarce now — who used to 
sit in the corner and play the hornpipe for the sailors in the 
days when every sailor could dance the hornpipe. Perhaps you 
do not remember that fiddler and his style. That is your mis- 
fortune. For there was a noble freedom in the handling of his 
bow, and the interpretation of his melodies was bold and origi- 
nal. He poured into the music all the spirit it was capable of 
containing, and drew out of his hearers every emotion that each 
particular tune was able to draw. Because, you see, tunes have 
their limitations. You cannot strike every chord in the human 
heart with a simple hornpipe. This sailor’s best friend, how- 


48 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


ever, did all that could be done. And always conscientious, if 
you please, never allowing his playing to become slovenly or to 
lack spirit. 

Armorel played after the manner of this old fiddler, standing 
up to her work in the middle of the room. 

“ Singleton’s Slip ” is a ditty which was formerly much ad- 
mired by those who danced the hey, the jig, or the simple 
country-dance ; it was also much played by the pipe and tabor 
upon the village green ; it accompanied the bear when he car- 
ried the pole ; it assisted those who danced on stilts ; and it 
lent spirit to those who frolicked in the morrice. Charles II. 
knew it ; Tom D’Urfey wrote words to it, I believe ; but I have 
not yet found them in his collection ; Kochester must certainly 
have danced to it. Armorel played it, first cheerfully and loudly, 
as if to arouse the spirits of those who listened, to remind them 
that legs may be shaken to this tune, and that ladies may be, 
and should be, when this tune begins, taken to their places and 
presently handed round and down the middle. Then she played 
it trippingly, as if they were actually all dancing. Then she 
played it tenderly — there is, if you come to think of it, a good 
deal of possible tenderness in the air. And, lastly, she played 
it joyfully, yet softly. How had she learned all these modes 
and moods ? 

While she played the old man listened critically, nodding his 
head and beating the time. Then, fired with memory, he bent 
his arms and worked his fingers as if they held the fiddle and 
the bow. And he threw back his head and thrust out his leg 
and leaned sideways, just like that jolly fiddler of whom we 
have just been reminded. Such, my friends, is the power of 
music. 

After a little while Justinian stopped this imaginary perform- 
ance, and, sitting forward, yielded himself wholly to the- influ- 
ence of the tune, cracking his fingers over his head and beating 
time with one foot just as you may see the old villager in the 
old colored prints — no villager in these days of bad beer ever 
cracks his fingers or shows any external signs of joyful emo- 
tion. As for the two serving-women, they reminded the specta- 
tor of the supers on the stage who march when they are told 
to march, sit down to feast when they are ordered,- and swell a 
procession for a funeral or a festival, all with unmoved counte- 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


49 


nance, showing a philosophy so great that the triumph of vic- 
tory or the disaster of defeat finds them equally calm and self- 
contained. That is to say, the two women showed no sense at 
all of being pleased or moved by “ Singleton’s Slip.” They 
went on, one with her knitting and the other with her spinning. 

As for the ancient lady, however, when the music began she 
straightened herself, sat upright, and opened her eyes. Then 
Chessun hastened to adjust her bonnet — if ladies sleep in their 
bonnets these adornments have a tendency to fall out of the 
perpendicular. Heaven forbid that we should gaze upon Ursula 
Kosevean with her bonnet tilted, like a lady in a van coming 
home to Wapping from Fairlop Fair ! This done, the venerable 
dame looked about her with eyes curiously bright and keen. 
Then she began to beat time with her fingers ; and then she 
began to talk, but — and this added to the strangeness of the 
w T hole business — nobody seemed to regard what she said. It 
was much as if the Oracle of Delphi were pouring out the most 
valuable prophecies and none of her attendants paid any heed. 
“ If,” thought the young man, “ I were to take down her words, 
they would be a Message.” And what with the voice of the 
Oracle, the spirited fiddling, the firelight dancing about the room, 
the old man snapping his fingers, and perhaps some physical 
exhaustion following on the absence of dinner, the young man 
felt as if the music had got into his head ; he wanted to get up 
and dance with Armorel round and round the room ; he would 
not have marvelled had Dorcas and Justinian bidden him lead 
out Chessun and so take hands, round twice, down the middle 
and back again, set and turn single — where had he learned these 
phrases and terms of the old country-dance ? Nowhere ; they 
belonged to the place and to the music and to the time — and 
that was at least a hundred and eighty years back. 

The fiddle stopped. Armorel held it down and looked again 
at her master. 

“ ’Tis well played,” he said. “ A moving piece. Now , 1 Prince 
Kupert’s March.’ ” 

She nodded, and began another tune. This is a piece which 
may be played many ways. First, to those who understand it 
rightly, it indicates the tramp of an army, the riding of cavalry, 
the jingling of sabres. Next, it may serve for a battle-piece, 
and you shall hear between the bars the charge of the horse 
3 


50 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


and the clashing of the steel. Or it may be played as a trium- 
phal march after victory ; or, again, as a country-dance in which 
a stately dignity takes the place of youthful mirth and merri- 
ment. At such a dance, to the tune of “ Prince Rupert’s March,” 
the elders themselves — yea, the justice of the peace, the vicar, 
the mayor and aldermen, and the headborough himself — may 
stand up in line. 

And now Roland became conscious of the old lady’s words ; 
he heard them clear and distinct, and as she talked the firelight 
fell upon her eyes, and she seemed to be gazing fixedly upon 
the stranger. 

“ When the Princess Augusta , East - Indiaman, struck upon 
the Castinicks in the middle of the night, she went to pieces in 
an hour — any vessel would. They said she was wrecked by the 
people of Samson, who tied a ship’s lantern between the horns 
of a cow. But it was never proved. There are other islands 
in Scilly and other islanders, if you talk of wrecking. Some of 
the dead bodies were washed ashore, and a good part of the 
cargo, so that there was something for everybody ; a finer wreck 
never came to the islands. What? If a ship is bound to be 
wrecked, better that she should strike on British rocks and cast 
her cargo ashore for the king’s subjects. Better the rocks of 
Scilly than the rocks of France. What the sea casts up belongs 
to the people who find it. That is just. But you must not rob 
the living. No. That is a great crime. ’Twas in the year ’13. 
When Emanuel Rosevean, my father-in-law, rescued the passen- 
ger who was lying senseless lashed to a spar, he should not have 
taken the bag that was hanging round his neck. That was not 
well done. He should have given the man his bag again. He 
stood here before he went away. ‘ You have saved my life,’ 
he said. ‘ I had all my treasure in a bag tied about my neck. 
If 1 had brought that safe ashore I could have offered you 
something worth your acceptance. But I have nothing. I be- 
gin the world again.’ Emanuel heard him say this, and he let 
him go. But the bag was in his box. He kept the bag. Very 
soon the wrath of the Lord fell upon the house, and his hand 
has been heavy upon us ever since. No luck for us — nor shall 
be any till we find the man and give him back his bag of treas- 
ure.” 

She went on repeating this story with small variations and 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


51 


additions. But Roland was now listening again to tlie fid- 
dle. 

Arm orel stopped again. 

“ 1 Dissembling Love,’ ” said her master. 

She began that tune obediently. 

The stranger within the gates seemed compelled to listen. 
His brain reeled ; the old woman fascinated him. The words 
which he had heard had been few, but now he seemed to see, 
standing before the fire, his hair powdered, and in black silk 
stockings and shoes with steel buckles, the man who had been 
saved and robbed shaking hands with the man who had saved 
and robbed him. Oh ! it was quite clear ; he had seen it all 
before ; he remembered it. This time he heard nothing of the 
tune. 

“ My husband with his only brother began to pay for that 
wickedness. They were capsized crossing to St. Mary’s and 
drowned. If I had thought what was going to happen I would 
have taken the bag and walked through all England looking for 
him until I had found him. Yes — if it took me fifty years. 
But I knew nothing. I thought our happiness would last for- 
ever. Then my son, Emanuel, was cast away in the Bristol 
Channel piloting a vessel. They struck on Steep Holm in a 
fog. And my grandson was supposed to have gone down be- 
tween the coast of France and Scilly — and your own father, Ar- 
morel, was drowned with his wife and three boys on their way 
home from a wedding feast at St. Agnes.” 

Here her voice dropped, and Roland heard the concluding 
bars of “ Dissembling Love,” which Armorel was playing with 
quite uncommon tenderness. 

When she stopped, Justinian gave her no rest. “ 1 Blue Pet- 
ticoats,’ ” he commanded. 

Armorel again obeyed. 

Then the old lady went back in memory to the days of her 
girlhood — now so long ago. Nowhere now can one find an old 
lady who will tell of her girlish days when the century was not 
yet arrived at the age of ten. 

“ We shall dance to-night,” she said, “ on Bryhcr Green. My 
boy will be there. We shall dance together. John Tryeth 
from Samson will play his fiddle. We shall dance 1 Prince Ru- 
pert’s March ’ and * Blue Petticoats ’ and 4 Dissembling Love.’ 


52 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


The ensign from the garrison is coming, and the deputy com- 
missar} T . They will drink my health. But they shall not have 
me for partner. My boy will be there — my own boy — the hand- 
somest man on all the islands, though he is so black. That’s 
the Spaniard in him. His mother was a Mureno — Honor Mu- 
reno, the last of the Murenos. He has got the old Spaniard’s 
sword still. It’s the Spanish blood. It gives my boy his black 
eyes and his black hair ; it makes his cheeks swarthy ; and it 
makes him proud and hot-tempered. I like a man to be quick 
and proud if he’s strong and brave as well. When I have sons, 
the Lord make them all like their father ?” 

So she went on talking of her lover. 

Armorel stopped, and looked again at her master. 

“ ‘ The Chirping of the Lark,’ ” he said, 

Armorel began this tune. It is of an artificial character, lend- 
ing itself less readily than the rest to emotion ; the composer 
called it “ The Chirping of the Lark ” because he wanted a title ; 
it resembles the song of that warbler in no single particular. 
But it changed the old lady’s current of thought. 

“ This long war,” she said, cheerfully, “ will be the making 
of the islands if it lasts. Never was there so much money 
about ; we roll in money ; the women have all got silks and 
satins ; the men drink port wine and the finest French brandy, 
which they run over for themselves ; the merchantmen put into 
the road, and the sailors spend their money at the port. Why 
shouldn’t we go on fighting the French until they haven’t a ship 
left afloat ? My man made the run last week, and hid the cargo 
— I know where. I shall help him to carry the kegs across to 
the garrison, where they want brandy badly. A fine run, and 
a good day’s work !” 

She looked around with a jubilant countenance. Then an- 
other memory seized her, and the light left her eyes. 

“Better be drowned yourself than marry a man who is going 
to be drowned ! Better not marry at all than lose your husband 
six months afterwards. It is long ago, now, Armorel. Time 

goes on — one can remember. He would be very old now yes 

— very old. Sometimes I see him still. But he has not grown 
old where he is staying. That is bad for me, because he liked 
young women, not old women. Men mostly do. They are so 
made, even the oldest of them. Perhaps the old women, when 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


53 


they rise again, are made young again, so that their lovers may 
love them still.” 

The clock struck half-past eight. Armorel stopped playing 
and the old lady stopped talking at the same moment. Her 
eyes closed, her head fell forward, she became comatose. 

Then the two serving-women got up and helped her, or car- 
ried her, out of the room to her bedroom behind. And the old 
man arose and without so much as a good-niglit hobbled away 
to his own cottage. 

“ She will go to bed now,” said Armorel. “ Chessun will 
take in her broth and her wine, and she will sleep all night.” 

“ Do you have this performance every night ?” 

“ Yes ; the playing seems to put life and heart into her. All 
the mornir** she dozes, or if she wakes she is not often able to 
talk ; but in the evening, when we sit around the fire just as 
they used to sit in the old days, without candles — because my 
people were poor and candles were dear — and when Chessun 
spins and I play — she revives and sits up and talks, as you have 
seen her.” 

“ Yes. It is rather ghostly.” 

“ Justinian used to play — Oh ! ne could play very well in- 
deed.” 

u Not so well as you.” 

“ Yes — much better — and he knows hundreds of tunes. But 
his fingers became stiff with rheumatism, and, as he had put off 
teaching Peter until it was too late, he taught me. That is 
ail.” 

“I think you play wonderfully well. Do you play nothing 
but old tunes ?” 

“ I only know what I have learned. There is that song which 
I heard the lady sing last year — I don’t know what it is called. 
Tell me if you like it.” 

She struck the strings again, and played a song full of life 
and spirit, of tenderness and fond memory — a bright, sparkling 
son£ — which wanted no words. 

“ Oh !” cried Roland, “ you arc really wonderful ! You are 
playing the ‘ Kerry Dance.’ ” 

She laughed, &nd laid down the violin. 

“ We must not have any more playing to-night. Do you 
really like to hear me play ? You look as if you did.” 


54 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“It is wonderful,” lie replied. “I could listen all night.' 
But, if there is to he no more music, shall we look outside ?” 

If there were no light in the house, the ship’s lantern was 
hanging up, with one of those big ship’s candles in it, which 
are of such noble dimensions and of generosity so unbounded 
in the matter of tallow. There was no moon ; but the sky was 
clear, and the sea could be seen by the light of the stars ; and 
the revolving lights of Bishop’s Rock and St. Agnes flashed 
across the water. 

The young man shivered. 

“ We are in fairyland,” he said. “ It is a charmed island. 
Nothing is real. Armorel, your name should be Titania. How 
have you made me hear and believe all these things ? How do 
you contrive your sorceries? Are you an enchantress? Con- 
fess — you cannot, in sober truth, play those tunes ; the old lady 
is in reality only a phantom called into visible shape by your 
incantations ! But you are a benevolent witch — you will not 
turn me into a pig ?” 

“ I do not understand. There have been no sorceries. There 
are no witches left on the Scilly Islands. Formerly there were 
many. Dorcas knows about them. I do not know what was 
the good of them.” 

“ I suppose you are quite real, after all. It is only strange 
and incomprehensible.” 

“ It is a fine night. To-morrow it will be a fine day with a 
gentle breeze. We will go sailing among the Outer Islands.” 

“The air is heavy with perfume. What is it? Surely an 
enchanted land !” 

“ It is the scent of the lemon- verbena-tree — see, here is a 
sprig. It is very sweet.” 

“ How silent it is here ! Night after night never to hear a 
sound !” 

“Nothing but the sound of the waves. They never cease. 
Listen ! it is a calm night. But you can hear them lapping on 
the beach.” 

Ten minutes later, when they returned to the house, they 
found candles lit and supper spread. A substantial supper, 
such as was owed to a man who had had no dinner. There 
was cold roast fowl and ham ; there was a lettuce-salad and a 
goodly cheese. And there was the unexpected and grateful 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


55 


sight of a Brown George with a most delectable ball of white 
froth at the top. Also, Roland remarked the presence of the 
decanter containing the blackberry wine. 

“Now you shall have some supper.” Armorel assumed the 
head of the table, and took up the carving-knife. “ No, thank 
you — I can carve very well. Besides, you are our visitor, and 
it is a pleasure to carve for you. Will you have a wing or a 
leg ! Do you like your ham thin ? Not too thin ? Oh ! how 
hungry you must be ! That is ale — home-brewed ale ; will you 
take some ? or would you prefer a glass of the blackberry wine ? 
Mo? — help yourself.” 

“ The beer for me,” said Roland. He filled and drank a tum- 
bler of the beverage dear to every right-minded Briton. It was 
strong and generous, with flakes of hop floating in it like the 
beeswing in port. “This is splendid beer,” he said. “I do 
not remember that I ever tasted such beer as this. It is hum- 
ming ale — October ale — stingo! no wonder our forefathers 
fought so well when they had such beer as this to fight upon !” 

“ Peter is proud of his home-brewed.” 

“Do you make everything for yourselves? Is Samson suffi- 
cient for all the needs of the islanders? This beer is the beer 
of Samson — strong and mighty. My hair is growing long al- 
ready — and curly.” 

“ We make all we can. There are no shops, you see, on Sam- 
son. We bake our own bread ; we brew our own beer ; we 
make our own butter ; we even spin our own linen.” 

“And you make your own wine, Armorel.” He called her, 
naturally, by her Christian name. You could not call such a 
girl Miss Armorel or Miss Rosevean. “ It is a wonderful island !” 

After supper they sat by the fireside, and, by permission, he 
smoked his pipe. 

Then, everybody else on the island being in bed and asleep, 
they talked. The young man had his way. That is to say, he 
encouraged the girl to talk about herself. He led her on ; he 
had a soft voice, soft eyes, and a general manner of sympathy 
which surprised confidence. 

She began, timidly at first, to talk about herself, yet with fem- 
inine reservation. No woman will ever talk about herself in the 
way which delights young men. But she told him all he asked : 
her simple, lonely life — how she arose early in the morning, how 


56 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


she roamed about the island, and sang aloud with none to hear 
her but the sea-gulls and the shags. 

“ Do you never draw ?” he asked. 

She had tried to draw, but there was no one to help her. 

“ Do you read 

No : she seldom read. In the best parlor there was a book- 
case full of books, but she never looked at them. As for the 
old lady and Dorcas, they had never learned to read. She had 
been at school, over at St. Mary’s, till she was thirteen, but she 
hardly cared to read. 

“ And the newspapers — do you ever read them ?” 

She never read them. She knew nothing that went on. 

As for her ambitions and her hopes — if he could get atthem ! 
Fond youth ! As if a girl would ever tell her ambitions ! But 
Armorel, apparently, had none to tell. She lived in the pres- 
ent ; it was joy enough for her to wander in the soft, warm air 
of her island home, upon the hills and round the coast, to cruise 
among the rocks while the breeze filled out the sail and the spark- 
ling water leaped above the bow. 

So far she told; nay — she hid nothing, because there was 
nothing to hide. She told no more because, as yet, her ambi- 
tions and her dreams of the future had no shape ; they were 
vague and misty ; she was only aware of their existence when 
restlessness seized her and impelled her to get up and run over 
the hills to Porth Bay and back again. 

But at night, when she went to bed, she experienced quite a 
new and disquieting sensation. It showed at least that she was 
no longer a child, but already on the threshold of womanhood. 
With blushing cheek and beating heart she remembered that, 
for an hour and more, she had been talking about nothing but 
herself ! What would Mr. Roland Lee think of a girl who could 
waste his time in talking about nothing but herself ? 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


57 


CHAPTER VI. 

THE FLOWER-FARM. 

Roland, startled out of sleep by the sudden feeling of dan- 
ger which always seizes us in a strange bed — except a bed at an 
inn — sat up and looked around him. His room was small and 
low and simply furnished. He was lying on a feather bed of 
the old-fashioned kind ; the bedstead was of wood, but with- 
out curtains. He presently remembered where he was. On 
Samson Island. The guest of a child — a girl of fifteen. 

He sprang out of bed and threw open the window. His 
room was over the porch. The fragrance of the lemon-verbena- 
tree arose like steam from a hay-stack, and filled his chamber. 
Below him, and beyond the garden, the geese waddled on the 
green, the ducks splashed in the pond, and in the farmyard 
Peter walked about slowly, carrying a pitchfork in his hands, 
but, apparently, for amusement rather than use, as if it had 
been a court sword. 

He looked at his watch. It was half-past seven. At this 
time in London he would have been still in the first long slum- 
ber of the night. Now he was eager to be up and dressed, if 
only for a better understanding of the situation. To be the 
guest of a child has the freshness of novelty. But it is a situ- 
ation which might lead to complications. Suppose a guardian, 
or a lawyer, or a cousin of some kind were to cross over in a 
boat and ask what he were doing there. And suppose he had 
no better reply than the plain truth — that this young lady had 
been so good as to invite him. Would a man go down to stay 
at a country-house on the simple invitation of a school-girl ? At 
the same time, this girl appeared to be the mistress of the estab- 
lishment. There was an ancient lady — too old for superinten- 
dence — and there were servants. Well: if no guardian chal- 
lenged his presence, why, then, for a single day — he must not 
stay more — it surely mattered little. The girl was but a child. 

3 * 


58 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


Yet he must not stay longer. Ferhaps they were not too well- 
off : he must not he a burden. And, again, though the girl in- 
vited him to stay, she named no limit of time. She did not 
invite him to stay for a week or for a fortnight. Perhaps she 
expected him to go away that very morning. 

He proceeded, with somewhat thoughtful countenance, con- 
sidering these things, to dress, paying as much attention to his 
personal appearance as a young man should and an old man 
must. It is the privilege of middle-aged men to go slovenly if 
they please : no one regardeth him of middle age. While their 
locks are turning gray and their children are growing up they 
are in the thick of the day’s work, and they may disregard, if 
they choose, the mysteries of the toilette. Apollo, however, 
must be as jealous about his apparel and adornment as the 
Graces themselves, who are always represented at the moment 
before the choice is made. A velvet jacket and a white waist- 
coat are trifles in themselves, but they become a youthful figure 
and a face which has finely cut features and is decorated with a 
promising silky beard, pointed withal, and the brown shading 
of a young moustache. Besides, he who is an artist thinks 
more than other young men about such things. Dress, to him, 
becomes costume. Color has to be considered ; such pictur- 
esqueness as is possible in modern fashion is aimed at ; the ar- 
tistic craving for fitness and beauty must be satisfied. Roland 
did what he could ; and with his velvet coat, a clean white waist- 
coat, a crimson scarf, a good figure, and a handsome face, he 
was as handsome a youth of twenty-one as one is likely to find 
anywhere. 

Again, as he opened his door and began to descend the narrow 
stairs, there came over him that curious feeling of having been 
in the place before. He had felt it in the evening when Ar- 
morel played “ Dissembling Love.” Now he felt it again. And 
when he stood in the porch he seemed to remember standing 
there once, long ago — long ago — but how long he could not tell ; 
nor, as happened to him before, could he remember what hap- 
pened on that occasion. 

Armorel herself was in the garden looking for some flowers 
for the breakfast-table. She greeted him with a smile of wel- 
come and a friendly grasp of the hand. There was also a look 
of kindly solicitude on her face which would have suited a ch&- 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


59 


telainc of forty years. Had he slept well ? Had he really been 
provided with everything he wanted? Was there anything at 
all lacking? If so, would he speak to Chessun? Breakfast, 
she said, leaving him in the garden, would be served in a few 
minutes. 

Would he speak to Chessun? Then, it seemed as if she 
meant him to stay another night. What should he do ? 

Then Armorel came back. 

“ Breakfast is quite ready,” she said. “ Come in, Roland 
Lee. It is a beautiful morning. There is a fresh breeze and 
a smooth sea. We can go anywhere this morning. I have 
spoken to Peter, and he will be ready to go with us in an hour 
or so. I think we may even get out to Scilly and Maiden 
Bower.” 

Yes ; the morning was bright and the sky was clear. In the 
golden sunshine of September the islets across the water showed 
like creations of a poet’s dream. 

Roland drew a deep breath of admiration. “ Everybody,” he 
said, “ ought to come to Scilly and to stay a long time.” 

He turned from the view to the girl beside him. She had 
changed her blue flannel dress for a daintier and a prettier cos- 
tume — think not that there are no shops at Hugh Town — of gray 
nun’s cloth, daintily embroidered in front. Still at her throat 
she wore a red flower, and round her neck clung the golden 
torque found in the old king’s grave. Her dark eyes glowed ; 
her lips were parted in a smile ; her cheek showed the dewy 
bloom that some girls, fortunate above their sisters, can exhibit 
when they first appear in the morning ; her long tresses were 
now tied up and confined ; she looked as if she had just stepped 
forth from her chamber, fresh from her sleep. No one certain- 
ly could have guessed that she had been up since six ; nor that 
the fish which had been hissing in the frying-pan, and were now 
lying meekly side by side in a dish on the breakfast-table, were 
of her own catching. An hour’s sitting in the boat off Samson 
Ledge with hook and line had procured this splendid contribu- 
tion to the morning banquet. Fish fragrant with the salt sea ; 
fish that had not been packed tight in boxes, nor travelled in 
railway trains, nor been slapped about on counters, nor been 
packed in ice ; fish that can never lie on a London table — these 
were set out before Roland’s hungry gaze. 


CO 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


The ancient dame did not appear. The two breakfasted, as 
they had supped, together. I do not know how or where Ar- 
morel learned the art and practice of hospitality, but certainly 
she showed a true feeling in the matter of feeding — especially 
at breakfast. First, the table was decorated with the autumn 
leaves of the bramble — crimson, yellow, purple ; few, indeed, 
know how beautiful a table may be made when decorated with 
these leaves. There were also a few late flowers from the gar- 
den ; but not many. The coffee was strong, the milk hot and 
thick, the bread and butter home-made, like the beer of yester 
eve ; the ham was cured by Chessun ; the eggs were collected 
by Armorel; she had also with her own hands made the jam 
and the cake. 

Armorel sat behind the cups with as much ease as if she had 
been accustomed from infancy to entertain young gentlemen at 
breakfast. She was serious over her task, and poured out the 
coffee as if it were something precious, not to be wasted or care- 
lessly administered, which is the spirit in which all good food 
should be approached. She did not ask any questions, nor did 
she talk much, during the banquet. Perhaps she had an in- 
stinctive perception of the great truth that breakfast, which is 
taken at the beginning of the day — the sacred day, with all its 
possibilities and its chances of what may happen ; the fateful 
day, which alone and unaided may change the whole course and 
current of a life — should be approached with a becoming grav- 
ity. At breakfast the man fortifies himself before he goes forth 
to work. But he has the work before him. In the evening it 
is done ; he has passed through the dangers of the day ; he still 
lives; he has received no hurt; he has, we hope, prospered in 
his honest handiwork ; he may laugh and rejoice. But at break- 
fast we should be serious. 

“ What will you do,” asked Armorel, breakfast completed, 
“ until Peter is ready ? He has got some work, you know, be- 
fore he can come out.” 

“ I should like first,” he said, “ to see your flower-farm, if I 
may.” 

“ If you please. But there is nothing to see at this time of 
the year. You must not think that we grow flowers all the year 
round. If you were here in February you would see the fields 
covered with beautiful flowers — iris, anemone, jonquil, narcissus, 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


Cl 


and daffodil. They are very pretty then, and the air is sweet 
with their scent. But now the fields are quite bare.” 

“ I should like to see them, however.” 

“ I will show them to you. It is a great happiness to the 
islands,” said Armorel, gravely, “ that we have found out the 
flower-farming. Everybody was very poor before. All the old 
ways of living were gone, you see. A long time ago the people 
had wrecks every winter — the sea cast up quantities of things 
which they could sell, or they went out in boats and took the 
things out of the hold when the ship was on the rocks. And 
then they were all smugglers ; the Scillonians used to run over 
to France openly, day and night, with no one to stop them. 
And they used to carry fruit and vegetables out to the home- 
ward-bound ships in the Channel. And then they were pilots, 
as well. Some of the men used to make as much as two hun- 
dred pounds a year as pilots. My grandfathers were all pilots. 
They were smugglers too ; and they had this farm and grew 
vegetables for the ships. Then the government built the light- 
houses and there were no more wrecks ; and the Preventive Ser- 
vice came and stopped the smuggling ; and since the steamers 
took the place of the sailing-ships no vessels put in here, and 
there are no more pilots wanted. So, you see, it was as if noth- 
ing was left at all.” 

“ It does seem rough on the people.” 

“ First they tried kelp-making. They collected the seaweed 
and put it in a kiln or furnace, and made a fire under it. I can 
show you some of the old furnaces still. But that came to an 
end. Then they tried a fishing company ; but I believe it did 
not pay. And then they began to build ships ; but I suppose 
other people could build them better. So that came to an end 
too. And for some time I do not know how all the people 
lived. As for the farms, they could never grow enough for the 
islands. Then a great many of the people went away. They 
had to go, or they would have starved. Some went to England, 
and some to America, and some to Australia. All the families 
went away from Samson, one by one, until at last there were 
none left but ourselves and Justinian. On Bryher and St. 
Martin’s they became fishermen, but not here. As for Justinian, 
he sent away all his boys except Peter. Oh! they have done 
very well — splendidly. One is a coastguard, and one is bo’s’n 


62 


ATIMOHEL OF LYONESSE. 


in the Queen’s navy. One is captain of a steamer trading be- 
tween Philadelphia and Cuba, and one is actually chief steward 
to a great Pacific liner ! Justinian is very proud of him.” 

“ Indeed, yes,” said Roland. “ With reason.” 

“The Scillonians,” the girl continued proudly, “all get on 
very well wherever they go. They are honest, you see, as well 
as clever.” 

“ And the flower-farming ?” 

“Somebody discovered that the early spring flowers which 
begin here in January could be carried to London and sold quite 
fresh. And then everybody began to plant bulbs. That is all. 
We have had a farm of some kind here for I do not know how 
many generations.” 

“ Since the time,” Roland suggested, “ when, in consequence 
of the separation of Scilly from the mainland and the disap- 
pearance of Lyonesse, the royal family found themselves left in 
Samson.” 

She laughed. “ Well — all these stone enclosures on the hill 
belonged to our farm. We grew things and ate them, I suppose. 
Perhaps we sold them. But we were then poor, I know, and 
now we have no more trouble.” 

Beside and behind the farmhouse on the slope of the hill they 
came upon a series of little fields following one after the other. 
They were quite small — some mere patches, none larger than a 
garden of ordinary size, and they were all enclosed and shut in 
by high hedges, so that they looked like largish boxes with the 
lids off. Some of the hedges were of elm, growing thick and 
close ; some of escallonia, with its red flowers ; some of veronica, 
its purple blossom like heads of bulrush ; some of the service- 
tree ; and some, but not many, of tamarisk, its pink bunches of 
blossom all displayed at this time of the year. But the fields 
were now brown and bare, and had nothing at all growing in 
them, except a few patches of gladiolus now dying. Beyond 
these fields, however, there were others of larger area, with ruder 
hedges formed by laths, reeds, wooden palings, and stone walls. 
These were enclosed, and partly sheltered for the growth of 
vegetables. 

“ These are our fields,” said Armorel. “ At this time of year 
there is nothing to show you. Our harvest begins in January 
and lasts till May, but February and March are our best months. 


ARM OREL OF LYONESSE. 


G3 


See — there is Peter with a young man from Bryher, planting 
bulbs for next year; they are taken up every three years and 
replanted.” 

Peter, in fact, was at work. He was superintending — a form 
of work which he found to suit him best — while the young man 
from Bryher, who looked more than half sailor, with a broad 
long-handled spade, was leisurely turning over the light sandy 
soil and laying in the bulbs side by side out of a great basket. 

“ It seems an easy form of agriculture,” said Roland. 

“ It is not hard. There is nothing to do after this until the 
flowers are picked. But sometimes a cold wind will come down 
from the njorth and will kill a whole field full of blossoms — in 
spite of all our hedges. That is a terrible loss. When every- 
thing goes well, we cut the flowers, pack them in boxes, carry 
them over to the Port, and next morning they are sold in Lon- 
don — oh ! and all over the country, in every big town.” 

“ I shall never again behold a daffodil in February,” said Rol- 
and, “ without thinking of Samson. You have lent a new asso- 
ciation to the spring flowers. Henceforth they will bring back 
this glorious view of sea and islands, gray and black rocks, the 
splendid sunshine and the fresh breeze — and,” he added, with a 
winning smile and deferential eyes, “ the Lady of Lyonesse.” 

Armorel laughed. It was very nice to be called the Lady of 
Lyonesse — nobody before had ever called her anything except 
plain Armorel. And it was quite a new experience to have a 
young gentleman treating her with deference as well as com- 
pliment. 

At the back of the house was an orchard, through which they 
presently passed. Like the flower-fields, it was protected by a 
high hedge of elm. But the apple-trees looked like the olives 
of Provence ; every one seemed in the last decay of age. They 
were twisted and dwarfish ; the branches grew in queer angles 
and elbows, as if they were crouching down out of reach of the 
north wind ; the trunks were bent, and, which completed their 
resemblance to the olive, all alike were covered and clothed with 
a thick gray lichen, clinging to every bough like a glove, and 
hanging like a fringe. If you tear it off, the tree begins to 
shiver and shake, though on Sampson it is never cold. 

“ Let us sit down,” said Roland, “ in this secluded spot and 
talk. Have I your leave, Armorel, to — Thank you.” He 


64 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


made no more scruple about calling her by her Christian name. 
It was quite natural. lie could not bring himself to say “ Miss 
Rosevean ” to this girl so young and so simple. Besides, after 
the manner of her own people, she called him by his Christian 
name. He filled and lit his briar-root and lay back on the warm 
bank, gazing upward at the blue sky through the leaves and the 
twisted branches of an aged apple-tree. 

“ It is good to be here. Do you know how very, very good 
it was of you to ask me, Armorel ? And do you know how very, 
very rash it was?” 

The girl, who showed her youth and inexperience in many 
little ways, regarded him with admiration unconcealed. Cer- 
tainly, he was a personable young man, even picturesque ; when 
his beard should be a little longer, when his moustache should 
be a little stronger, he might be able to pass for Charles I. ideal- 
ized, and in early manhood, when as yet he had not begun to 
dissimulate. 

“ I was so glad when you promised to stay,” she replied, 
truthfully. 

“Again, it is most good of you to say so. But, Armorel, a 
dreadful misgiving has possessed me. Does your — does the 
Ancestress approve of the invitation ?” 

“ Armorel laughed. “ Why,” she said, “ we never consult 
her about anything. She is too old, you know.” 

“ Was nobody consulted at all ? Did you ask me here all out 
of your own head, as the children say ?” 

“ Why not ? There is nobody to consult. Why should I not 
ask you ?” 

“ It was very good of you — only — well — you are younger 
than most ladies who invite people to their house.” 

“ Well — but I asked you,” she replied, with a little irritation, 
“and you said you would come. You asked if anybody could 
stay on the island.” 

“ Yes, of course.” He did not explain that at first he thought 
the place was a lodging-house. The mistake was not unnatural ; 
but he could not explain. “ I ought to have known,” he said. 
“You are the Queen of Samson, as well as a Princess in Lyon- 
esse. I beg your Majesty to forgive the ignorance of a traveller 
from foreign parts.” 

“ Justinian and Peter manage the farm. Dorcas and Chcssun 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


65 


manage the house. There is no one to ask,” she added, simply, 
“ what I am doing.” 

She said this with a touch of sadness. 

“ Have you no relations — cousins — nobody 2” 

“ I have some cousins. They live in London, I believe. One 
of them went away in the Long Wars, and became a purser in 
the navy. After that he was purveyor for the fleet, and was 
made a knight. He was my grandfather’s cousin, so I suppose 
he is dead by this time, but I dare say he has left children.” 

“ You are very lonely, Armorel.” 

“ I had three brothers ; but they were all drowned — father, 
mother, three brothers, all drowned together coming from St. 
Agnes. That was ten years ago, when I was only a little girl 
and did not know what it meant. All our misfortunes, my great- 
great-grandmother says, are due to the wickedness of her hus- 
band’s father, who took a bag of treasure from the neck of a 
passenger rescued from a wreck. You heard her last night. Do 
you think that God would drown my innocent brothers and my 
innocent father and mother all on the same day because, eighty 
years ago, that wicked thing was done 2” 

“ No, Armorel. I can believe a great deal, but that I cannot 
believe.” 

“ And so, you see, I am quite alone. Why should I not invite 
you to stay here 2” 

“ There is not, in reality, Armorel, any reason, except that you 
did not know anything about me.” 

“ Oh ! but I saw you and talked with you.” 

“ Yes ; but that was not enough. We do not ask people into 
our houses unless we know something about them.” 

“ I could see that you were a gentleman.” 

“ You are very good to think so. Let me try to justify that 
belief. But, Armorel, seriously, there are thieves and rogues and 
wicked -men in the world. Some of these may come to Scilly. 
Do not ask another stranger. Believe me, it is dangerous. As 
for me, you have shown me your flower-farm and have enter- 
tained me hospitably, let me thank you and take my departure.” 

“ Go away 2 Take your departure 2 Why 2” Armorel looked 
ready to cry. “You have only just come. You have seen 
nothing.” 

“ Do you really wish me to stay another night 2” 


66 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ Of course I do. What is it, Roland Lee ? You have got 
something on your mind. Why should you not stay ?” 

“ I should like somebody,” he replied, weakly, “ to approve. 
If the Ancestress, or even Dorcas, or Chessun herself, would 
approve — ” 

“ Why, of course Dorcas approves. She says it is the best 
thing in the world for me to have some one here to talk to. 
She said so yesterday evening, and again this morning.” 

“ In that case, Armorel, and since it is so delightful here — and 
so new — and since you are so kind, I will stay one more day.” 

He remembered his friend’s warning, and the grumpiness 
which he showed on the way hack. His conscience smote him, 
but not severely. He would be very careful. And, after all, she 
was but a child. He would just stay the one day and make a 
sketch or two. Then he would go away. 

“ That is settled, then. One more day — or, perhaps, one more 
week, or a month, or a year,” she said, laughing. And now, be- 
fore Peter is ready, I must leave you for ten minutes, because I 
have to make a cake for your tea this evening. As for dinner, 
we shall have that in the boat, or on one of the islands. It is 
my business, you know, to make the puddings and the cakes.” 

“ Armorel — you shall not. I would rather go without.” 

“You shall certainly not go without a cake. Why, I like to 
make things. It would be dull here, indeed, if I had not got 
things to do all day long.” 

“ Do you not find it dull sometimes, even with things to do ?” 

“ Perhaps. Sometimes. I suppose we are all of us tempted 
to be discontented at times even when we have so many bless- 
ings as I enjoy.” Armorel was young enough, you see, to talk 
the language of her nurses and serving-women. 

“ How do you get through the day ?” 

“ I get up at six o’clock except in winter, when it is too dark. 
I have a run with Jack after breakfast ; we run up the hill and 
down the other side — round Porth Bay, just to see the waves 
beating on White Island Ledge, where you very nearly — ” 

“Very nearly,” Roland echoed. “But for you.” 

“ Then we run up Bryher Hill and stand on the earn just for 
Jack to bark at the north wind.” 

“ Sometimes it rains.” 

“ Oh, yes — and sometimes it blows such a gale of wind that 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


67 


I could not stand on the earn for a moment. Then I stay at 
home and make or mend something. There are always things 
to he made or mended. Then we are always wanting stores of 
some kind or other, and I have to go over to Hugh Town and 
buy them. At Hugh Town there are shops where they keep 
beautiful things — you can buy anything you want at Hugh Town. 
We cannot make pins and needles at home, can we ? Then we 
have dinner, and Granny is brought in. Sometimes she wakes 
up then, and gets lively, and knows everything that is going on. 
She will talk quite sensibly for an hour at a time. And I have 
my fiddle to practise. After tea, when the days are long enough, 
I go up on the hills again, and wander about till dark.” 

“ And do you never have any companions at all ?” he asked, 
with a curious, unreasoning, perfectly inexcusable touch of jeal- 
ousy, because it could not matter to him even if all the young 
men of St. Mary’s and Bryher and Tresco and St. Martin’s 
came over every Sunday to court this dainty damsel. Yet he 
did feel the least bit anxious. 

“ Never any companions. Nobody ever comes here. They 
used to come, when Granny was still able to talk, in order to 
ask her advice. She was so wise, you see.” 

“ And every evening you make music for the Ancestress and 
the worthy Tryeth family ?” 

“Yes. And then I have supper and go to bed. Generally, 
by nine o’clock we are all asleep in the house.” 

“ It would be a monotonous life if you were older. But it is 
only a preliminary or a preparation to something else. It is the 
overture, played in soft music, to the happy comedy of your 
future life, Armorel.” 

“ You mean to say something kind,” she replied. “ Of course, 
my life must seem dull to you.” 

“ One cannot always live on lovely skies and sunlit seas and 
enchanted islands.” 

“ Sometimes it seems to me that a little more talk would be 
pleasant. Justinian talks very well, to be sure ; but he is the 
only one. He knows quantities of wrecks. It w’ould astonish 
you to hear him tell of the wrecks he has seen. Dorcas talks 
very little now, because she has lost all her teeth. Chessun is 
a silent woman, because she’s always been kept under by her 
mother. And Peter’s not a talkative boy, because he’s always 


68 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


been kept under both by his father and his mother. Besides, 
he got that nasty fall which made all his hair fall off. You 
can’t wonder if he thinks about that a good deal. And they 
are all getting old.” 

“ Yes. They seem to be getting very old indeed. Some day 
they will follow the example of other old people and vanish. 
Then, Armorel, you will be like Robinson Crusoe or Alexander 
Selkirk.” 

“I know all about Alexander Selkirk. He lived alone on 
Juan Fernandez, having been put ashore by Captain Stradling 
of the Cinque Ports. He had been four years and four months 
on the island when Captain Woodes Rogers found him. He 
was clothed in goat-skin. He built two huts with Pimento- 
trees, and covered them with long grass and lined them with 
the skin of goats. He made fire by rubbing two sticks together 
on his knee. And he lived by catching goats. You mean, 
Roland Lee,” she said, with great seriousness, “ that some day 
or other all these old people will die — my great-grandmother, 
Justinian, Dorcas, and even Peter and Chessun, and that then I 
shall be alone on the island. That would be terrible. But it 
will not happen in that way. I am sure it will not, because it 
would be so very terrible. We are in the Lord’s hand, and it 
will not be allowed.” 

The young man colored, and dropped his eyes. There cer- 
tainly was not a single girl of all those whom he knew in Lon- 
don who could have said such a thing so simply and so sincerely. 
Not the youngest girl fresh from the most religious teaching 
could say such a thing. Yet they go to church a good deal 
oftener than Armorel, whose chances were only once a week, 
and then only when the weather was fine. This it is to be a 
Scillonian, and to believe what you hear in church. Roland 
had no reply to make. Even to hint that faith so simple and 
so complete was rare would have been cruel and wicked. 

“You have quoted Woodes Rogers,” he said, presently. 
“ Have you read that good old navigator ? I suppose you read 
a great deal. It is not often that one finds a girl quoting from 
Woodes Rogers.” 

“ Oh, no ! I do not read much. There is a bookcase full 
of books ; but I only read the voyages. There is a whole row 
of them. Woodes Rogers, Shelvocke, Commodore Anson, Wal- 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


60 


lis, Carteret, and Cook — and more besides. I like Carteret best, 
because bis ship was so small and so crazy, and his men so few 
and so weak, and yet he would keep on traversing the ocean as 
long as he could, and discovered a great deal more than his 
commander, who cowardly deserted him.” 

“There are other things in the world besides voyages — and 
other books.” 

“ I learned the other things at school. There was geography 
— the world is only the Scilly Islands spread out big. And his- 
tory, too. You would be surprised to find what a lot of English 
history there _is that belongs to Scilly. Queen Elizabeth built 
the Star Fort — you’ve seen the Star Fort on the Garrison. There 
is Charles the First’s Castle, on Tresco, all in ruins ; and, down 
below it, Cromwell’s Castle, which I will show you. And Charles 
II. stayed here. Oh! and there was the Spanish Armada — I 
must not forget that, because of one of my ancestors, three 
hundred years ago — who was wrecked here.” 

“ How was that !” 

“ He was a captain or officer of some kind on board one of 
the Spanish ships ; his name was Don Hernando Mureno. After 
the Armada was defeated and driven away, some of the ships 
came down the Irish Sea, and among them his ship. And she 
ran ashore on one of the Outer Islands — I think on Maiden 
Bower. How many were saved I cannot tell you ; but some 
were, and among them Don Hernando Mureno himself. He 
stayed here and never wanted to go away any more, but married 
a Scillonian and lived out his life on Bryher and is buried in 
the old church at St. Mary’s, where I could show you his grave 
and the headstone, though the letters are all gone by this time. 
I have his sword still, and I will show it to you. One of my 
grandfathers married his granddaughter. They say I take after 
the Spanish side.” 

“ You are a true Castilian, Armorel. Unless, indeed, you hap- 
pen to an Andalusian or a Biscayan.” 

“ Do you think I ought to read the other books ?” she asked 
him anxiously. “If you really think so I will try. I will, 
really.” 

I suppose that no young man — not even the most hardened 
lecturer at Newnham — ever becomes quite indifferent to the 
spectacle of Venus intrusting the care of her intellect to a 


70 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


young philosopher. It is a moving spectacle, and still novel. 
It makes a much more beautiful picture than that of Venus 
handing over the care of her soul to the Shaven and Shorn. Rol- 
and colored. He felt at once the responsibility and the delicacy 
of the task thus offered him. 

“ We will look into the shelves,” he said. “ I suppose that 
the Ancestress no longer reads?” 

“ She never learned to read at all. She can neither read nor 
write ; yet there was never any one who knew so much. She 
could cure all diseases, and the people came over here from all 
the islands for her advice. Dorcas knows a great deal, but she 
does not know the half or the quarter of her mistress’s knowl- 
edge.” 

“ Armorel ” — Roland knocked the ashes out of his pipe — “ I 
think you want — very badly — some one to advise you.” 

“ Will you advise me, Roland Lee ?” 

“ Child ” — he slowly got up — “ all my life, so far, I have been 
looking for some one to advise and help myself. You must not 
lean upon a reed. Come — let us seek Peter the boy, and launch 
the ship and go forth upon our voyage about this sea of many 
islands. Perchance we may discover Circe upon one of them — 
unless you are yourself Circe, and I shall presently find myself 
transformed — but you are too good to turn me into anything 
except a prince or a poet. And we may light upon St. Bran- 
dan’s Land ; or we may find Judas Iscariot floating on that 
island of red-hot brass ; or we may chance on Andromeda and 
witness the battle of Perseus and the dragon ; or we may find 
the weeping Ariadne — everything is possible on an island.” 

“ Roland Lee,” said the girl, “ you are talking like your 
friend Dick Stephenson. Why do you say such extravagant 
things ? This is the island of Samson, and I am nothing in the 
world but Armorel Rosevean.” 


Will you advise me, Roland Lee? 





























































































































ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


71 


CHAPTER VII. 

A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 

All day long the boat sailed about among the channels and 
over the shallow ledges of the Outer or Western Islands, whither 
no boat may reach save on such a day, so quiet and so calm. 
The visitor who comes by one boat and goes away by the next 
thinks he has seen this archipelago. As well stand inside a 
great cathedral for half an hour and then go away thinking you 
have seen it all. It takes many days to see these fragments of 
Lyonesse, and to get a true sense of the place. They sailed 
round the southern point of Samson, and they steered west- 
ward, leaving Great Minalto on the lee, towards Mincarlo, lying, 
like an old-fashioned sofa, high at the two ends and flat in the 
middle. They found a landing at the southern point, and clam- 
bered up the steep and rocky sides of the low hill. On this 
island there are four peaks, with a down in the middle, all com- 
plete. It is like a doll’s island. Everywhere in Scilly there are 
the same features: here a hill strewn with boulders; here a 
little down with fern and gorse and heath ; here a bay in which 
the water, on such days as it can be approached, peacefully laps 
a smooth white beach ; here dark caves and holes in which the 
water always, even in the calmest day of summer, grumbles and 
groans, and, when the least sea rises, begins to ro^r and bellow ; 
in time of storm it shrieks and howls. Those who sail round 
these rumbling water-dungeons begin to think of sea monsters. 
Hidden in these recesses the awful calamary lies watching, wait- 
ing, his tentacles, forty feet long, stretching out in the green 
water, floating innocently till they touch their prey, then seizing 
and haling it within sight of the baleful, gleaming eyes, and 
within reach of the devouring mouth. In these holes, too, lie 
the great conger-eels ; they fear nothing that swims except that 
calamary; and in these recesses walk about the huge crabs 
which devour the dead bodies of shipwrecked sailors. On the 


72 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


sunlit rocks one looks to see a mermaiden, with glittering scales, 
combing out her long fair tresses ; perhaps one may unfortu- 
nately miss this beautiful sight, which is rare even in Scilly ; 
but one cannot miss seeing the seals flopping in the water, and 
swimming out to sea with seeming intent to cross the broad 
ocean. And in windy w r eather porpoises blow in the shallow 
waters of the sounds. All round the rocks at low tide hangs 
the long sea-weed, undisturbed since the days when they manu- 
factured kelp, like the rank growth of a tropical creeper ; at 
high tide it stands up erect, rocking to and fro in the wash and 
sway of the water like the tree-tops of the forest in the breeze. 
Everywhere, except in the rare places where men come and go, 
the wild sea-birds make their nests ; the shags stand on the 
ledges of the highest rocks in silent rows, gazing upon the 
water below ; the sea-gulls fly, shrieking in sea-gullic rapture — 
there is surely no life quite so joyous as a sea-gull’s ; the cur- 
lews call ; the herons sail across the sky ; and, in spring, mill- 
ions of puffins swim and dive and fly about the rocks, and lay 
their eggs in the hollow places of these wild and lonely islands. 

These things, which one presently expects and observes with- 
out wonder in all the islands, were new to Roland when he set 
foot on the rugged rock of Mincarlo. He climbed up the steep 
sides of the rock, and stood upon the top of its highest peak. 
He made two or three rapid sketches of rock and sea, the girl 
looking over his shoulder, watching curiously, for the first time 
in her life, the growth of a picture. 

Then he stood and looked around. The great stones were 
piled about ; the brown turf crept up their sides ; where there 
was space to grow, the yellow branches of the fern were spread ; 
and on all four sides lay the shining water. 

“All my life,” he said, “I have dreamed of islands. This is 
true joy, Armorel. For a permanency, Samson is better than 
Mincarlo, because there is more of it. But to come here some- 
times — to sit on this earn while the wind whistles in your ear, 
and the waves are lapping against the rocks all day long, and 
always — Armorel, is there any other world ? Are there men 
and women living somewhere? Is there anybody but you and 
me — and Peter ?” he added hastily. “ I don’t believe in Lon- 
don. It is a dream. Everything is a dream but the islands 
and the boat and Armorel.” 





turner 


“ The girl looked over his shoulder , watching curiously , for the first time in 

her life, the growth of a picture. ” 


$ 























- 




















ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


73 

She was only a child, hut she turned a rosy red at the com- 
pliment. Nothing hut the boat and herself. She was very 
fond of the boat, you see, and she felt that the words conveyed 
a high compliment. Then they began to explore the rest of 
this mountainous island, which has such a variety of scenery all 
packed away in the small space of twelve acres. When they 
had walked over the whole of Mincarlo that is accessible, they 
returned to their landing-place, where Peter sat in the boat 
keeping her off, with head bent as if he were asleep. 

“ It must be half-past twelve,” said Armorel. “ I am sure 
you are hungry. We will have dinner here.” 

“ No better place for a picnic. Come along, Peter. Bear a 
hand with the basket. Here, Armorel, is a rock that will do 
for a table, and here is one on which we two can sit. There is 
a rock for you, Peter. Now. The opening of a luncheon bas- 
ket is always a moment of grave anxiety. What have we got 2” 

“ This is a rabbit-pie,” said Armorel. “ And this is a cake- 
pudding. I made it yesterday. Do you like cake-pudding? 
Here are bread and salt and things. Can you make your dinner 
off a rabbit-pie, Roland Lee ?” 

“ A very good dinner too.” The young man now under- 
stood that on Samson one uses the word dinner instead of 
lunch, and that supper is an excellent cold spread served at 
eight. “ A very good dinner, Armorel. I mean to carve this. 
Sit. down and let me see you make a good dinner.” 

An admirable rabbit-pie, and an excellent cake - pudding. 
Also, there had not been forgotten a stone jar filled with that 
home-brewed of which the like can no longer be found in any 
other spot in the British Islands. I hope one need do no more 
than indicate the truly appreciative havoc wrought by the young 
gentleman among all these good gifts and blessings. 

After dinner, to lie in the sunshine and have a pipe, looking 
across the wide stretch of sunny water to the broken line of 
rocks and the blue horizon beyond, was happiness undeserved. 
Beside him sat the girl, anxious that he should be happy ; think- 
ing of nothing but what might best please her guest. 

Then they got into the boat again, and sailed half a mile or 
so due north by the compass, until they came within another 
separate archipelago of which Mincarlo is an outlying com- 
panion. 

4 


74 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


It is the group of rocks, called the Outer or the Western 
Islands, lying tumbled about in the water west of Bryher and 
Samson. Some of them are close together, some are separated 
by broad channels. Here the sea is never calm ; at the foot of 
the rocks stretch out ledges, some of them bare at low water, 
revealing their ugly black stone teeth ; the swell of the Atlantic 
on the calmest days rises and falls, and makes white eddies, 
broken water, and flying spray. Among these rocks they rowed ; 
Peter and Roland taking the oars, while Armorel steered. They 
rowed round Maiden Bower, with its cluster of granite forts 
defying the whole strength of the Atlantic, which will want an- 
other hundred thousand years to grind them down ; about and 
among the Black Rocks and the Seal Rocks, dark and threaten- 
ing ; they landed on Ilvswillig, with his peak of fifty feet, a 
strange, wild island ; they stood on the ledge of Castle Bryher 
and looked up at the tower of granite which rises out of the 
water like the round keep of a Norman castle ; they hoisted 
sail and stood out to Scilly himself, where his twin rocks com- 
mand the entrance to the islands. Scilly is of the dual num- 
ber: he consists of two great mountains rising from the water 
sheer, precipitous, and threatening ; each about eighty feet 
high, but with the air of eight hundred ; each black and square 
and terrible of aspect ; they are separated by a narrow channel 
hardly broad enough for a boat to pass through. 

“ One day last year,” said Armorel — “ it was in July, after a 
fortnight of fine weather — we went through this channel, Peter 
and I — didn’t we, Peter ? It was a dead calm, and at high tide.” 

The boy nodded his head. 

The channel was now, the tide being nearly high, like a foam- 
ing torrent, through which the water raced and rushed, boiling 
into whirlpools, foaming and tearing at the sides. The rapids 
below Niagara are not fiercer than was this channel, though the 
day was so fair and the sea without so quiet. 

“ Once,” said Peter, breaking the silence, “ there was a ship 
cast up by a wave right into the fork of the channel. She went 
tojneces in ten minutes, for she was held in a vise like, while 
the waves beat her into sticks. Some of the men got on to the 
north rock — what they call Cuckoo — and there they stuck till 
the gale abated. Then people saw them from Bryher, and a 
pilot-boat put off for them.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


75 


“ So they were saved ?” said Roland. 

‘‘No, they were not saved,' ” Peter replied slowly. “’Twas 
this way : the pilot-boat that took them off the rock capsized on 
the way home. So they was all drowned.” 

“ Poor beggars ! Now, if they had been brought safe ashore 
we might have been told what these rocks look like in rough 
weather ; and what Scilly is like when you have climbed it ; 
and how a man feels in the middle of a storm on Scilly.” 

“You can see very well what it is like from Samson,” said 
Armorel. “ The waves beat upon the rocks, and the white 
spray flies over them and hides them.” 

“ I should like to hear as well as to see,” said Roland. 
“ Fancy the thunder of the Atlantic waves against this mass of 
rock ; the hissing and boiling in the channel ; the roaring of the 
wind ; and the dashing of the waves ! I wonder if any of these 
shipwrecked men had a sketch-book in his pocket.” 

“ To be drowned,” he continued, “ just by the upsetting of a 
boat. And after escaping death in a much more exciting man- 
ner. Their companions were torn from the deck and hurled 
and dashed against the rock, so that in a moment their bones 
were broken to fragments, and the fragments themselves were 
thrown against the rocks till there was nothing left of them. 
And these poor fellows clung to the rock, hiding under a boul- 
der from the driving wind— cold, starving, wet, and miserable. 
And just as they thought of food and shelter and warmth again, 
to be taken and plunged into the cold water, there to roll about 
till they were drowned ! A dreadful tragedy !” 

Having thus broken the ice, Peter proceeded to relate more 
stories of shipwreck, taking after his father, Justinian Tryeth, 
whose conversational powers in this direction were, according 
to Armorel, unrivalled. There is a shipwreck story belonging 
to every rock of Scilly, and to many there are several ship- 
wrecks. As there are about as many rocks of Scilly as there 
are days in the year, the stories would take long in the telling. 

Fortunately, Peter did not know all. It is natural, however, 
that a native of Samson, and the descendant of many genera- 
tions of wreckers, should love to talk about wrecks. There- 
fore he proceeded to tell of the French frigate which came over 
to conquer Scilly in 1798, and was very properly driven ashore 
by the sea which owns allegiance to Britannia, and all hands 


76 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


lost, so that the Frenchmen captured no more than their graves, 
which lie in a row on St. Agnes. On Maiden Bower he placed, 
I know not with what truth, the wreck of the Spaniard which 
gave Armorel an ancestor. On Mincarlo he remembered the 
loss of an orange-ship on her way from the Azores. On Meno- 
vaur he had seen a collier driven in broad daylight and broken 
all to pieces in half a day, and of her crew not a man saved. 
Other things, similarly cheerful, he narrated slowly while the 
sunshine made these gray rocks put on an hospitable look, and 
the boat danced over the rippling waves. With his droning 
voice, his smooth face with the long white hair upon it, like the 
last scanty leaves upon a tree, he was like the figure of Death 
at the Feast, while Armorel, young, beautiful, smiling, reminded 
her guest of life and love and hope. 

They sailed round so many of these rocks and islets, they 
landed on so many, they lingered so long among the reefs, loath 
to leave the wild, strange place, that the sun was fast going down 
when they hoisted sail and steered for New Grinsey Sound on 
their homeward way. 

You may enter New Grinsey Sound either from the north or 
from the south. The disadvantage of attempting it from the 
former on ordinary days is that those who do so are generally 
capsized and frequently drowned. On such a day as this, how- 
ever, the northern passage may be attempted. It is the chan- 
nel, dangerous and beset with rocks and ledges, between the 
islands of Bryher and Tresco. As the boat sailed slowly in, 
losing the breeze as it rounded the point, the channel spread 
itself out broad and clear. On the right hand rose, precipitous, 
the cliffs and crags of Shipman’s Head, which looks like a con- 
tinuation of Bryher, but is really separated from the island by 
a narrow passage — you may work through it in calm weather — 
running from Hell Bay to the sound. On the left is Tresco, its 
downs rising steeply from the water, and making a grand pre- 
tence of being a very lofty ascent indeed. In the middle of the 
coast juts out a high promontory, surrounded on all sides but 
one by the water. On this rock stands Cromwell’s Castle, a round 
tower, older than the Martello Towers. It still possesses a roof, 
but its interior has been long since gutted. In front of it has 
been built a square stone platform or bastion, where once, no 
doubt, they mounted guns for the purpose of defending this 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


11 


channel against an invader, as if Nature had not already de- 
fended it by her ledges and shallows and hardly concealed teeth 
of granite. To protect by a fort a channel when the way is so 
tortuous and difficult, and where there are so many other ways, 
is almost as if Wark worth Castle, five miles inland, on the wind- 
ing Coquet, had been built to protect the shores of Northum- 
berland from the invading Dane ; or as if Chepstow, above the 
muddy Wye, had been built for the defence of Bristol. There, 
however, the castle is, and a very noble picture it made as the 
boat slowly voyaged through the sound. The declining sun, 
not yet sunk too low behind Bryher, clothed it with light and 
splendor, and brought out the rich color of gray rock and yel- 
low fern upon the steep hillside behind. Beyond the castle, in 
the midst of the sound, rose a pyramidal island, a pile of rocks, 
seventy or eighty feet high, on whose highest earn some of Oli- 
ver Cromwell’s prisoners were hanged, according to the voice of 
tradition, which, somehow, always goes dead against that strong 
person. 

Roland, who had exhausted the language of delight among 
the Outer Islands, contemplated this picture in silence. 

“ Do you not like it ?” asked the girl. 

“ Like it ?” he repeated. “ Armorel ! It is splendid.” 

“ Will you make a sketch of it ?” 

“ I cannot. I must make a picture. I ought to come here 
day after day. There must be a good place to take it from — 
over there, I think, on that beach. Armorel ! It is splendid. 
To think that the picture is to be seen so near to London, and 
that no one comes to see it !” 

“ If you want to come day after day, Roland,” she said, softly, 
“you will not be able to go away to-morrow. You must stay 
longer with us on Samson.” 

“ I ought not, child. You should not ask me.” 

“ Why should you not stay, if you are happy with us ? We 
will make you as comfortable as ever we can. You have only 
to tell us what you want.” 

She looked so eagerly and sincerely anxious that he yielded. 

“ If you are really and truly sure,” he said. 

“ Of course I am really and truly sure. The weather will be 
fine, I think, and we will go sailing every day.” 

“ Then I will stay a day or two longer. I will make a pict- 


78 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


ore of Cromwell’s Castle — and the hill at the back of it and the 
water below it. I will make it for you, Armorel ; but I will keep 
a copy of it for myself. Then we shall each have a memento of 
this day — something to remember it by.” 

“ I should like to have the picture. But, oh, Roland ! — as if 
I could ever forget this day !” 

She spoke with perfect simplicity, this child of Nature, with- 
out the least touch of coquetry. Why should she not speak 
what was in her heart? Never before had she seen a young 
man so brave, so gallant, so comely ; nor one who spoke so gently ; 
nor one who treated her with so much consideration. 

He turned his face ; he could not meet those trustful eyes, 
with the innocence that lay there ; he was abashed by reason of 
this innocence. A child — only a child. Armorel would change. 
In a year or two this trustfulness would vanish. She would be- 
come like all other girls — shy and reserved, self-conscious in 
intuitive self-defence. But there was no harm as yet. She was 
a child — only a child. 

As the sun went down the bows ran into the fine white sand 
of the landing-place, and their voyage was ended. 

“ A perfect day,” he murmured. “ A day to dream of. How 
shall I thank you enough, Armorel ?” 

“You can stay and have some more days like it.” 


CHAPTER VIII. 

THE VOYAGERS. 

This was the first of many such voyages and travels, though 
not often in the outside waters, for the vexed Bermoothes them- 
selves are not more lashed by breezes from all the quarters of 
the compass than these Isles of Scilly. They sailed from point 
to point, and from island to island, landing where they listed or 
where Armorel led, wandering for long hours round the shores 
or on the hills. All the islands, except the bare rocks, are cov- 
ered with down and moorland, bounded in every direction by 
rocky headlands and slopes covered with granite boulders. They 
were quite alone in their explorations ; no native is ever met upon 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


79 


those downs ; no visitor, except on St. Mary’s, wanders on the 
beaches and around the bays. They were quite alone all the 
day long ; the sea-breeze whistled in their ears ; the gulls flew 
over their heads — the cormorants hardly stirred from the rocks 
when they climbed up ; the hawk that hung motionless in the 
air above them changed not his place when they drew near. 
And always, day after day, they came continually upon unex- 
pected places ; strange places, beautiful places ; beaches of daz- 
zling white ; wildly heaped earns ; here a cromlech, a logan-stone, 
a barrow — Samson is not the only island which guards the tombs 
of the Great Departed — a new view of sea and sky and white- 
footed rock. I believe that there does not live any single man 
who has actually explored all the isles of Scilly ; stood upon ev- 
ery rock, climbed every hill, and searched on every island for 
its treasures of ancient barrows, plants, birds, earns, and head- 
lands. Once there was a worthy person who came here as chap- 
lain to St. Martin’s. He started with the excellent intention of 
seeing everything. Alas ! he never saw a single island prop- 
erly ; he never walked round one exhaustively. He wrote a 
book about them, to be sure ; but he saw only half. As for 
Samson, this person of feeble intelligence even declared that the 
island was not worth a second visit ! After that one would shut 
the book, but is lured on in the hope of finding something new. 

One must not ask of the islanders themselves for information 
about the isles, because few of them ever go outside their own 
island unless to Hugh Town, where is the Port and where are 
the shops. Why should they ? On the other islands they have 
no business. Justinian Tryeth, for instance, was seventy -five 
years of age ; Hugh Town he knew, and had often been there, 
though now Peter did the business of the farm at the Port ; St. 
Agnes he knew, having wooed and won a wife there ; he had 
been to Bryher Church, which is close to the shore — the rest of 
Brvher was to him as unknown as Iceland. As for St. Martin’s 
or Annet or Great Ganilly, he saw them constantly ; they were 
always within his sight, yet he had never desired to visit them. 
They were an emblem, a shape, a name to him, and nothing 
more. It is so always with those who live in strange and beau- 
tiful places ; the marvels are part of their daily life ; they heed 
them not unless, like Armorel, they have no work to do and are 
quick to feel the influences of things around them. Most Swiss 


80 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


people seem to care nothing for their Alps, but here and there 
is one who would gladly spend all his days high up among the 
fragrant pines, or climbing the slope of ice with steady step and 
slow. 

But these young people did try to visit all the islands. Upon 
Roland there fell the insatiate curiosity — the rage — of an ex- 
plorer and a discoverer. He became the Captain Cook himself ; 
he longed for more islands ; every day he found a new island. 
“ Give,” cries he who sails upon unknown seas and scans the 
round circle of the horizon for the cloudy peak of some far- 
distant mountain — “ give — give more islands — still more islands. 
Let us sail for yonder cloud ! Let us sail on until the cloud be- 
comes a hill-top, and the hill another island ! Largesse for him 
who first calls, ‘ Land ahead !’ There shall we find strange mon- 
sters and treasures rare, with friendly natives, and girls more 
blooming than those of fair Tahiti. Let us sail thither, though 
it prove no more than a barren rock, the resting-place of the sea- 
lion ; though we can do no more than climb its steep sides and 
stand upon the top while the spray flies over the rocks and beats 
upon our faces.” In such a spirit as Captain Carteret (Armo- 
rers favorite) steered his frail bark from shore to shore did 
Roland sail among those Scilly seas. 

Of course they went to Tresco, where there is the finest gar- 
den in all the world. But one should not go to see the garden 
more than once, because its perfumed alleys, its glass-houses, its 
cultivated and artificial air, are somehow incongruous with the 
rest of the islands. As well expect to meet a gentleman in a 
court dress walking across Fylingdale Moor. Yet it is indeed 
a very noble and royal garden; other gardens have finer hot- 
houses ; none have a better show of flowers and trees of every 
kind ; for variety it is like unto the botanical gardens of a trop- 
ical land ; you might be standing in one of the alleys of the 
garden of Mauritius, or of Java, or the Cape. Here everything 
grows and flourishes that will grow anywhere, except, of course, 
those plants which carry patriotism to an extreme, and refuse 
absolutely to leave their native soil. You cannot go picking 
pepper here, nor can you strip the cinnamon-tree of its bark. 
But here you will see the bamboos cluster, tall and graceful ; 
the eucalyptus here parades his naked trunk and his blue leaves ; 
here the fern-tree lifts its circle of glory of lace and embroidery 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


81 


twenty feet high ; the prickly pear nestles in w’arm corners ; the 
aloe shoots up its tall stalk of flower and of seed ; the palms 
stand in long rows ; and every lovely plant, every sweet flower, 
created for the solace of man, grows abundantly, and hastens 
with zeal to display its blossoms ; the soft air is full of per- 
fumes, strange and familiar ; it is as if Kew had taken ofl her 
glass roofs and placed all her plants and trees to face the Eng- 
lish winter. But, then, the winter of Scilly is not the winter of 
Great Britain. The botanist may visit this garden many times 
and always find something to please him ; but the ordinary trav- 
eller will go but once, and admire and come away. It is far 
better outside on the breezy down, where the dry fern and 
withered bents crack beneath your feet, and the elastic turf 
springs as you tread upon it. There are other things on Tresco : 
there is a big fresh-water lake — it would be a respectable lake 
even in Westmoreland — where the wild birds disport themselves ; 
beside it ostriches roam gravely, after the manner of the bird. 
It is pleasant to see the creatures. There is a great cave, if you 
like dark, damp caves ; better than the cave, there is a splendid 
bold coast sloping steeply from the dow T n all round the northern 
part of the island. 

Then they walked all round St. Mary’s. It is nine miles 
round ; but if, as these young people did, you climb every head- 
land and w r alk round every bay, and descend every possible 
place where the boulders make a ladder down to the boiling wa- 
ter below 7 , it is nine hundred miles round, and, for its length, 
the most wonderful walk in all the world. They crossed the 
broad sound to St. Agnes, and saw St. Warna’s wondrous 
cove ; they stood on the desolate Gugh and the lonely Annet, 
beloved of puffins ; they climbed on every one of the eastern 
islands, and even sailed, when they found a day calm enough to 
permit the voyage, among the Dogs of Scilly, and stood upon 
the black boulders of Rose vear and scared the astonished cor- 
morants from wild Gorregan. 

One day it rained in the morning. Then they had to stay at 
home, and Arraorel showed the house. She took her guest iuto 
the dairy, where Chessun made the butter and scalded the cream 
— that rich cream which the West Country folks eat with every- 
thing. She made him stand by and help make a junket, which 
Devonshire people believe cannot be made outside the shadow 
4 * 


82 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


of Dartmoor ; she took him into the kitchen — the old room 
with its old furniture, the candlesticks and snuffers of brass, the 
bacon hanging to the joists, the blue china, the ancient pewter 
platters, the long, bright spit — a kitchen of the eighteenth cen- 
tury. And then she took him into a room which no longer ex- 
ists anywhere else save in name. It was the still-room, and on 
the shelves there stood the elixirs and cordials of ancient time ; 
the currant gin to fortify the stomach on a raw morning before 
crossing the Road; the cherry brandy for a cold and stormy 
night ; the elderberry wine, good mulled and spiced at Christ- 
mas-time ; the blackberry wine ; the home-made distilled waters 
— lavender water, Hungary water, Cyprus water, and the Divine 
Cordial itself, which takes three seasons to complete, and re- 
quires all the flowers of spring, summer, and autumn. Then 
they went into the best parlor, and Armorel, opening a cup- 
board, took out an old sword of strange shape and with faded 
scabbard. On the blade there was a graven Latin legend. “ This 
is my ancestor’s sword,” she said. “ He was an officer of the 
Spanish Armada — Hernando Mureno was his name.” 

“You are, indeed, a Spanish lady, Armorel. Your ancestor 
is well known to have been the bravest and most honorable gen- 
tleman in King Philip’s service.” 

“ He remained here — he would not go home ; he married and 
became a Protestant.” 

She put back the sword in its place, and brought forth other 
things to show him — old-fashioned watches, old compasses, sex- 
tants, telescopes, flint-and-steel pistols — all kinds of things be- 
longing to the old days of smuggling and of piloting. 

Then she opened the bookcase. It should have been filled 
with histories of pirates and buccaneers ; but it was not ; it con- 
tained a whole body of theology of the Methodist kind. Roland 
tossed them over impatiently. “ I don’t wonder,” he said, “at 
your reading nothing if this is all you have.” But he found one 
or two books which he set aside. 

As they wandered about the islands, of course they talked. 
It wants but little to make a young man open his heart to a 
girl : only a pair of soft and sympathetic eyes, a face full of in- 
terest, and questions of admiration. Whether she tells him any- 
thing in return is quite another matter. Most young men, when 
they review the situation afterwards, discover that they have 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


83 


told everything and learned nothing. Perhaps there is nothing 
to learn. In a few days Armorel knew everything about her 
guest. He belonged to that very numerous class which hopes 
to earn deathless fame, and to fill the whole world with their 
name, by the practice of what they insist on calling Art — as if 
there were no other art but that of painting. He was poor ; it 
was necessary that he should make money as well as paint, be- 
cause one cannot live without money ; and although he held 
money-making in the customary contempt, it was necessary that 
he should make a good deal, because, which is often the case, 
his standard of comfort was pitched rather high : it included, 
for instance, a first-class club, good cigars, and good claret. 
Also, as he said, an artist should be free from sordid anxieties ; 
Art demands an atmosphere of calm ; therefore, he must have 
an income. This, like everything that does not exist, must be 
created. Man is godlike because he alone of creatures can cre- 
ate ; he, and he alone, constantly creates things which previous- 
ly did not exist — an income, honor, rank, tastes, wants, desires, 
necessities, habits, rules, and laws. 

“ How can you bear to sell your pictures ?” asked the girl. 
“ We sell our flowers, but then we grow them by the thousand. 
You make every picture by itself — how can you sell the beauti- 
ful things ? You must want to keep them every one to look at 
all your life. Those that you have given to me I could never 
part with.” 

“ One must live, fair friend of mine,” he replied, lightly. “ It 
is my only way of making money, and without money we can 
do nothing. It is not the selling of his pictures that the artist 
dreads — that is the necessity of Art as a profession ; it is the 
danger that no one will care about seeing them or buying them. 
That is much more terrible, because it means failure. Some- 
times I dream that I have become old and gray, and have been 
working all my life, and have had no success at all, and am still 
unknown and despised. In Art there are thousands of such 
failures. I think the artist who fails is despised more than any 
other man. It is truly miserable to aspire so high and to fall so 
low. Yet who am I that I should reach the port?” 

“All good painters succeed,” said the girl, who had never 
seen a painter before or any painting save her own colored en- 
gravings. “You are a good painter, Roland. You must sue- 


84 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


ceed. You will become a great painter in everybody’s esti- 
mation.” 

“ I will take your words for an oracle,” be said. “ When I 
am melancholy, and the future looks dark, I will say, ‘ Thus and 
thus spoke Armorel.’ ” 

The young man who is about to attempt fortune by the pur- 
suit of Art must not consider too long the wrecks that strew the 
shores and float about the waters, lest he lose self-confidence. 
Continually these wrecks occur, and there is no insurance against 
them ; yet continually other barques hoist sail and set forth upon 
their perilous voyage. It may be reckoned as a good point in 
this aspirant that he was not over-confident. 

“ Some are wrecked at the outset,” he said. “ Others gain a 
kind of success. Heavens ! what a kind ! To struggle all their 
lives for admission to the galleries, and to rejoice if once in a 
while a picture is sold.” 

“ They are not the good painters,” the girl of large experience 
again reminded him. 

“ Am I a good painter,” he replied humbly. “ Well, one can 
but try to do good work, and leave to the gods the rest. There 
is luck in things. It is not every good man who succeeds, Ar- 
morel. To every man, however, there is allotted the highest 
stature possible for him to reach. Let me be contented if I 
grow to my full height.” 

“You must, Roland. You could not be contented with any- 
thing less.” 

“ To reach one’s full height, one must live for work alone. 
It is a hard saying, Armorel. It is a great deal harder than you 
can understand.” 

“If you love your work and if you are happy in it — ” said 
the girl. 

“ You do not understand, child. Most men never reach their 
full height. You can see their pictures in the galleries — poor, 
stunted things. It is because they live for anything rather than 
their work. They are pictures without a soul in them.” 

Now, when a young man holds forth in this strain, one or two 
things suggest themselves. First, one thinks that he is playing 
a part, putting on “ side,” affecting depths — in fact, enacting the 
part of the common prig, who is now, methinks, less common 
than he was. If he is not a prig uttering insincere sentimentali- 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


85 


ties, lie may be a young man who has preserved bis ideals beyond 
the usual age by some accident. The ideals and beliefs and as- 
pirations of young men, when they first begin the study of Art 
in any of its branches, are very beautiful things, and full of 
truths which can only, somehow, be expressed by very young 
men. The third explanation is that in certain circumstances, 
as in the companionship of a girl not belonging to society and 
the world — a young, innocent, and receptive girl — whose mind 
is ready for pure ideas, uncontaminated by earthly touch, the old 
enthusiasms are apt to return and the old beliefs to come back. 
Then such things may spring in the heart and rise to the lips as 
one could not think or utter in a London studio. 

Sincere or not, this young man pursued his theme, making a 
kind of confession which Armorel could not, as yet, understand. 
But she remembered. Women at all ages remember tenaciously, 
and treasure up in their hearts, things which they may at some 
other time learn to understand. 

“ There was an old allegory, Armorel,” this young man went 
on, “ of a young man choosing his w T ay, once for all. It is an 
absurd story, because every day and all day long we are pulled 
the other way. Sometimes it makes me tremble all over only to 
think of the flowery way. I know what the end would be. But 
yet, Armorel, what can you know or understand about the Way 
of Pleasure, and how men are drawn into it with ropes ? My 
soul is sometimes sick with yearning when I think of those who 
run along that way and sing and feast.” 

“ What kind of way is it, Roland ?” 

“You cannot understand, and I cannot tell you. The Way 
of Pleasure and the Way of Wealth. These are the two roads 
by which the artistic life is ruined. Yet we are dragged into them 
by ropes.” 

“ You shall keep to the true path, Roland,” the girl said, with 
glistening eyes. “ Oh ! how happy you will be when you have 
reached your full height — you will be a giant then.” 

He laughed, and shook his head. “ Again, Armorel, I will 
take it from your lips — a prophecy. But you do not under- 
stand.” 

“ Ho,” she said. “ I am very ignorant. If I cannot under- 
stand, I can remember. The Way of Pleasure and the Way of 
Wealth. I shall remember. We are told that we must not set 


86 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


our hearts upon the things of this world. I used to think that 
it meant being too fond of pretty frocks and ribbons. Dorcas 
said so once. Since you have come I see that there are many, 
many things that I know nothing of. If I am to be dragged to 
them by ropes, I do not want to know them. The Way of 
Pleasure and the Way of Wealth. They destroy the artistic 
life,” she repeated, as if learning a lesson. “ These ways must 
be Ways of Sin, don’t you think ?” she asked, looking up with 
curious eyes. 

Doubtless. Yet this is not quite the modern manner of re- 
garding and speaking of the subject. And considering what an 
eighteenth -century and bourgeois -like manner it is, and how 
fond we now are of that remarkable century, one is surprised 
that the manner has not before now been revived. When we 
again tie our hair behind, and assume silver-buckled shoes and 
white silk stockings, we shall once more adopt that manner. It 
was not, however, artificial with Armorel. The words fell nat- 
urally from her lips. A thing that was prejudicial to the better 
nature of a man must, she thought, belong to Ways of Sin. 
Again — doubtless. But Roland did not think of it in that way, 
and the words startled him. 

“ Puritan !” he said. “ But you are always right. It is the 
instinct of your heart always to be right. But we no longer 
talk that language. It is a hundred years old. In these days 
there is no more talk about sin — at least outside certain circles. 
There are habits, it is true, which harm an artist’s eye and destroy 
his hand. We say that it is a pity when an artist falls into these 
habits. We call it a pity, Armorel, not the Way of Sin. A pity — 
that is all. It means the same thing, I dare say, so far as the 
artist is concerned.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


87 


CHAPTER IX. 

THE LAST DAY BUT ONE. 

The last day but one ! It always comes at length — it is 
bound to come — the saddest, the most sentimental of all days. 
The boy who leaves school — I speak of the old-fashioned boy 
and the ancient school — where he has been fagged and bullied 
and flogged, on this last day but one looks round with a chok- 
ing throat upon the dingy walls and the battered desks. Even 
the convict who is about to be released after years of prison 
feels a sentimental melancholy in gazing for the last time upon 
the whitewashed walls. The world, which misunderstands the 
power of temptation, and is distrustful as to the reality of re- 
pentance, will probably prove cold to him. How much more, 
then, when one looks around on the last day but one of a holiday ! 
To-morrow we part. This is the last day of companionship. 

Roland’s holiday was to consist of a day or two, or three at 
the most — yet lo ! the evening and the morning were the twenty- 
first day. There was always something new to be seen, some- 
thing more to be sketched, some fresh excuse for staying in a 
house where this young man lived from the first as if he had 
been there all his life, and belonged to the family. Scilly has 
to be seen in cloud as well as in sunshine ; in wind and rain as 
well as in fair weather ; one island had been accidentally over- 
looked ; another must be revisited. 

So the days went on, each one like the day before it, but 
with a difference. The weather was for the most part fine, so 
that they could at least sail about the islands of the Road. 
Every morning the young man got up at six, and, after a bath 
from Shark Point, walked all round Samson, and refreshed his 
soul by gazing upon the Outer Islands. Breakfast over, he took 
a pipe in the farm-yard with Justinian and Peter, who continually 
talked of shipwrecks and of things washed ashore. During this 
interval Armorel made the puddings and the cakes. When she 


88 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


liad accomplished this delicate and responsible duty, she came 
out, prepared for the day. They took their dinner-basket with 
them, and sallied forth ; in the afternoon they returned ; in the 
evening, at seven o’clock, the table was pushed back; the old 
serving-people came in ; the fire was stirred into animation ; Ar- 
morel played the old-fashioned tunes ; and the ancient lady ral- 
lied, and sat up, and talked, her mind in the past. All the days 
alike, yet each one differing from its neighbors. There is no 
monotony, though place and people remain exactly the same, 
when there is the semblance of variety. For, besides the dis- 
covery of so many curious and interesting islands, this fortu- 
nate young man, as we have seen, discovered that his daily com- 
panion, though so young — “ only a child ” — was a girl of won- 
derful quickness and ready sympathy. A young artist wants 
sympathy — it is necessary for his growth ; sympathy, interest, 
and flattery are necessary for the artistic temperament. All 
these Armorel offered him in large measure, running over. She 
kept alive in him that faith in his own star which every artist, 
as well as every general, must possess. Great is the encourage- 
ment of such sympathy to the young man of ambition. This 
consideration is, indeed, the principal excuse for early marriages. 
Three weeks of talk with such a girl — no one else to consider or 
to interrupt — no permission to be sought — surely, these things 
made up a holiday which quite beat the record ! Three whole 
weeks ! Such a holiday should form the foundation of a life-long 
friendship ! Could either of them ever forget such a holiday ? 

Now it was all over. For very shame Roland could make no 
longer any excuses for staying. His sketch-book was crammed. 
There were materials in it for a hundred pictures — most of them 
might be called Studies of Armorel. She was in the boat hold- 
ing the tiller, bareheaded, her hair flying in the breeze, the 
spray dashing into her face, and the clear blue water rushing 
past the boat ; or she was sitting idly in the same boat lying in 
Grinsey Sound, with Shipman’s Head behind her ; or she was 
standing on the sea-weed at low water under the mighty rock of 
Castle Bryher ; or she was standing upright in the low room, 
violin in hand, her face and figure crimsoned in the red fire- 
light ; or she was standing in the porch between the verbena- 
trees, the golden figure-head smiling benevolently upon her, and 
the old ship’s lantern swinging overhead with an innocent air, 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


89 


as if it had never heard of a wreck, and knew not how valuable 
a property may be a cow, judiciously treated — with a lighted 
lantern between its horns — on a stormy night. There were 
other things : sketches of bays and coves, and headlands and 
earns, gathered from all the islands — from Porthellick and Pen- 
innis on St. Mary’s, which everybody goes to see, to St. War- 
na’s C\>ve on St. Agnes, whither no traveller ever wendeth. 

A veVy noble time. No letters, no newspapers, no trouble of 
any kind ; yet one cannot remain forever even in a house where 
such a permanent guest would be welcomed. Now and then, 
it is true, one hears how such a one went to a friend’s house 
and stayed there. La Fontaine, Gay, and Coleridge are exam- 
ples. But I have never heard, before this case, of a young man 
going to a house where a quite young girl, almost a child, was 
the mistress, and staying there. Now the end had come ; he 
must go back to London, where all the men and most of the 
women have their own shows to run, and there is not enough 
sympathy to go round ; back to what the young artist, he who 
has as yet exhibited little and sold nothing, calls his Work — 
putting a capital letter to it, like the young clergyman. Per- 
haps he did not understand that under the eyes of a girl who 
knew nothing about Art he had done really better and finer 
work, and had learned more, in those three weeks, than in all 
the time he had spent in a studio. Well ; it was all over. The 
sketching was ended ; there would be no more sailing over the 
blue waves of the rolling Atlantic outside the islands ; no more 
quiet cruising in the Road ; no more fishing ; no more clamber- 
ing among the granite rocks ; no more sitting in sunny places 
looking out to sea, with this bright child at his side. 

Alas ! And no more talks with Armorel. From the first 
day the child sat at his feet and became his disciple — Heloise 
herself was not an apter pupil. She ardently desired to learn ; 
like a curious child, she asked him questions all day long, and 
received the answers as if they were gospel ; but no child that 
he had ever known betrayed blacker gaps of ignorance than 
this girl of fifteen. Consider. What could she know ? Other 
girls learn at school ; Armorel’s schooling was over at fourteen, 
when she came home from St. Mary’s to her desert island. 
Other girls continue their education by reading books ; but Ar- 
morel never read anything except voyages of the last century, 


90 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


which treat but little of the modern life. Other girls also learn 
from hearing their elders talk ; hut Armorel’s elders never talked. 
Other girls, again, learn from conversation with companions; 
but Armorel had no companions. And they learn from the 
shops in the street, the people who walk about, from the church, 
the theatre, the shows ; but Armorel had no better street than 
the main street of Hugh Town. And they learn from society ; 
but this girl had none. And they learn from newspapers, 
magazines, and novels ; but Armorel had none of these. No 
voice, no sound of the outer world reached Alexandra Selkirk 
of Samson. Juan Fernandez itself was not more cut off from 
men and women. Therefore, in her seclusion and her igno- 
rance, this young man came to her like another Apollo or a 
Vishnu at least — a revelation of the world of which she knew 
nothing, and to which she never gave a thought. He opened a 
door and bade her look within. All she saw was a great com- 
pany painting pictures and talking Art ; but that was some- 
thing. As for what he said, this young man ardent, she re- 
membered and treasured all, even the lightest things, the most 
trivial opinions. He did not abuse her confidence. Had he 
been older he might have been cynical ; had he not been an 
artist he might have been flippant ; had he been a City man 
and a money-grub he might have shown her the sordid side of the 
world. Being such as he was he showed her the best and most 
beautiful part — the world of Art. But as for these black gaps 
of ignorance, most of them remained even after Roland’s visit. 

“ Your best friend, Armorel,” said her guest, “ would not 
deny that you are ignorant of many things. You have never 
gone to a dinner-party or sat in a drawing-room ; you cannot 
play lawn - tennis ; you know none of the arts feminine ; you 
cannot talk the language of society ; oh ! you are a very igno- 
rant person indeed. But then there are compensations.” 

“ What are compensations ? Things that make up ? Do you 
mean the boat and the islands ?” 

“The boat is certainly something, and the islands give a 
flavor to life on Samson, don’t they? If I were talking the 
usual cant I should say that the chief compensation is the ab- 
sence of the hollow world and its insincere society. That is 
cant and humbug, because society is very pleasant, only, I sup- 
pose, one must not expect too much from it. Your real com- 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


ai 


pensations, Armorel, are of another kind. You can fiddle like 
a jolly sailor, all of the olden time. If you were to carry that 
fiddle of yours on to the Common Hard at Portsea not a man 
among them all, even the decayed veteran who caught Nelson — 
the dying hero — in his arms, but would jump to his feet and 
shuffle — heel and toe, double step, hack step, flourish and fling. 

I believe those terms are correct.” 

“ I am so glad you think I can fiddle.” 

“You want only instruction in style to make you a very fine 
violinist. Besides, there is nothing more pleasing to look at, 
just now, than a girl playing the violin. It is partly fashion. 
Formerly it was thought graceful for a girl to play the guitar, 
then the harp ; now it is the fiddle, when it is not the zither or 
the banjo. That is one compensation. There is another. I 
declare that I do not believe there is in all London a girl with 
such a genius as you for puddings and pies, cakes and biscuits. 
I now understand that there is more wanted, in this confection, 
than industry and application. It is an art. Every art affords 
scope for genius born not made. The true — the really artistic 
— administration of spice and sugar, milk, eggs, butter, and 
flour, requires real genius— such as yours, my child. And as 
to the still-room, there isn’t such a thing left, I believe, in the 
whole world except on Samson, any more than there is a spin- 
ning-wheel. Who but yourself, Armorel, possesses the secret, 
long since supposed to be hopelessly lost, of composing Cyprus 
water and the Divine Cordial? In this respect, you belong to 
a hundred years ago, when the modern ignorance was unknown. 
And where can I find — I should like to know — a London girl 
who understands cherry brandy, and can make her own black- 
berry wine ?” 

“You want to please me, Roland, because you are going 
away and I am unhappy.” She hung her head in sadness too 
deep for tears. “ That is why you say all these fine things. 
But I know that they mean very little. I am only an ignorant 

giri.” 

“I must always, out of common gratitude, want to please 
you. But I am only speaking the bare truth. Then there is 
the delicate question of dress. An ordinary man is not sup- 
posed to know anything about dress, but an artist has always 
to consider it. There are certainly other girls — thousands of 


92 


ARMOREL OF LYGNE8SE. 


other girls — more expensively dressed than you, Armorel ; hut 
you have the taste for costume, which is far better than any 
amount of costly stuff.” 

“ Chessun taught me how to sew and how to cut out.” But 
the assurance of this excellence brought her no comfort. 

“ When I am gone, Armorel, you will go on with your draw- 
ing, will you not ?” It will be seen that he had endeavored, as 
an Apostle of Art, to introduce its cult even on remote Samson. 
That was so, and not without success. The girl, he discovered, 
had been always making untaught attempts at drawing, and 
wanted nothing but a little instruction. This was a fresh dis- 
covery. “ That you should have the gift of the pencil is de- 
lightful to think of. The pencil, you see, is like the Jinn — I 
fear you have no Jinn on Samson — who could do almost any- 
thing for those who knew how to command his obedience, but 
only made those people ridiculous who ignorantly tried to order 
him around. If you go on drawing every day I am sure you 
will learn how to make that Jinn obedient. I will send you, 
when I get home, some simple books for your guidance. Prom- 
ise, child, that you will not throw away this gift.” 

“I will draw every day,” she replied, obediently, but with 
profound dejection. 

“ Then there is your reading. You must read something. I 
have looked through your shelves, and have picked out some 
books for you. There is a volume of Cowper and of Pope, and 
an old copy of the Spectator , and there is Goldsmith’s ‘ Deserted 
Village.’ ” 

“ I will read anything you wish me to read,” she replied. 

“I will send you some more books. You ought to know 
something about the world of to-day. Addison and Goldsmith 
will not teach you that. But I don’t know w'hat to send you. 
Novels are supposed to represent life ; but then they pre-sup- 
pose a knowledge of the world, to begin with. You want an 
account of modern society as it is, and the thing does not exist. 
I will consider about it.” 

“ I will read whatever you send me. Roland, when I have 
read all the books and learned to draw shall I have grown to 
my full height ? Remember what you said about yourself.” 

“ I don’t know, Armorel. It is not reading. But — ” He 
left the sentence unfinished. 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


93 


11 Who is to tell me — on Samson 2” she asked. 

In the afternoon of this day Roland planted his easel on the 
plateau of the northern hill, where the barrows are, and put the 
last touches to the sketch which he afterwards made into the 
first picture which he ever exhibited. It appeared in the Gros- 
venor of ’85 ; of course everybody remembers the picture, which 
attracted a very respectable amount of attention. It was called 
the “ Daughter of Lyonesse.” It represented a maiden in the 
first blossom of womanhood, tall and shapely. She was dressed 
in a robe of white wool thrown over her left shoulder and gath- 
ered at the waist by a simple belt of brown leather ; a white 
linen vest was seen below the wool ; round her neck was a golden 
torque ; behind her was the setting sun ; she stood upon the 
highest of a low pile of granite boulders, round the feet of which 
were spread the yellow branches of the fern and the faded flow- 
ers of the heather ; she shaded her eyes from the sun with her 
left hand, and looked out to sea. She was bareheaded; the 
strong breeze lifted her long black hair, and blew it from her 
shoulders ; her eyes were black, and her complexion was dark. 
Behind her and below her was the splendor of sun and sky 
and sea, with the Western Islands rising black above the golden 
waters. 

The sketch showed the figure, but the drapery was not com- 
plete ; as yet it was a study of light and color and a portrait. 

“ I don’t quite know,” said the painter, thoughtfully, “ wheth- 
er you ought not to wear a purple chiton ; Phoenician trade must 
have brought Phoenician luxuries to Lyonesse. Your ancestors 
were tinmen — rich miners — no doubt the ladies of the family 
went dressed in the very, very best. I wonder whether in those 
days the king’s daughter was barefooted. The caliga, I think, 
the leather sandal, would have been early introduced into the 
royal family on account of the spikiness of the fern in autumn 
and the thorns of the gorse all the year round. The slaves and 
common people, of course, would have to endure the thorns.” 

He continued his work while he talked, Armorel making no 
reply, enacting the model with zeal. 

“ It is a strange sunset,” he went on, as if talking to himself. 
“ A day of clouds, but in the west a broad belt of blue low down 
in the horizon ; in the midst of the belt the sun flaming crimson ; 


94 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


on either hand the sky aglow, but only in the belt of clear ; above 
is the solid cloud, gray and sulky, receiving none of the color ; 
below is also the solid, sulky cloud, but under the sun there 
spreads out a fan of light which strikes the waters and sets 
them aflame in a long, broad road from the heavens to your feet, 
O child of Lyonesse. Outside this road of light the waters are 
dull and gloomy ; in the sky the colored belt of light fades grad- 
ually into soft yellows, clear greens, and azure blues. A strange 
sunset ! A strange effect of light ! Armorel, you see your life ; 
it is prefigured by the light. Overhead the sky is gray and col- 
orless ; where the glow of the future does not lie on the waters 
they are gray and colorless. Nothing around you but the waste 
of gray sea ; before you black rocks — life is always full of black 
rocks ; and beyond, the splendid sun — soft, warm, and glowing. 
You shall interpret that in your own way.” 

Armorel listened, standing motionless, her left hand shading 
her eyes. 

“ If the picture,” he went on, “ comes out as I hope it may, it 
will be one of those that suggest many things. Every good 
picture, Armorel, as well as every good poem, suggests. It is 
like that statue of Christ which is always taller than the tallest 
man. Nobody can ever get above the thought and soul of a 
good picture or a good poem. There is always more in it than 
the wisest man knows. That is the proof of genius. That is 
why I long all day for the mysterious power of putting into my 
work the soul of every one who looks upon it — as well as my 
own soul. When you come to stand before a great picture, Ar- 
morel, perhaps you will understand what I mean. You will find 
your heart agitated with strange emotions ; you will leave it with 
new thoughts. When you go away from your desert island, re- 
member every day to read a piece of great verse, to look upon 
a great picture, and to hear a piece of great music. As for these 
suggested thoughts, you will not perhaps be able to put them 
into words. But they will be there.” 

Still Armorel made no reply. It was as if he were talking to 
a statue. 

“ I have painted you,” he said, “with the golden torque round 
your neck ; the red gold is caught by the sunshine ; as for your 
dress, I think it must be a white woollen robe — perhaps a bor- 
der of purple — but I don’t know — There are already heaps of 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


95 


color — color of sky and of water, of the granite with the yellow 
lichen and of brown and yellow fern and of heather faded — 
No — you shall be all in white, Armorel. No dress so sweet for 
a girl as white. A vest of white linen made by yourself from 
your own spinning-wheel, up to the throat and covering the right 
shoulder. Are you tired, child ?” 

“ No — I like to hear you talk.” 

“ I have nearly done — in fact ” — he leaned back and con- 
templated his work with the enthusiasm which is to a painter 
what the glow of composition is to the writer — “ I have done 
all I can until I go home. The sun of Scilly hath a more golden 
glow in September than the sun of St. John’s Wood. If I have 
caught aright — or something like it — the light that is around 
you and about you, Armorel — The sun in your left hand is 
like the red light of a candle through the closed fingers. So — 
I can do no more — Armorel! you are all glorious within and 
without. You are, indeed, the King’s Daughter ; you are clothed 
with the sun as with a garment; if the sun were to disappear 
this moment, you would stand upon the peak, for all the island 
to admire — a flaming beacon !”. 

His voice was jubilant — he had done well. Yet he shaded 
his eyes and looked at canvas and at model once more with jeal- 
ousy and suspicion. If he had passed over something ! It was 
an ambitious picture — the most ambitious thing he had yet at- 
tempted. 

“ Armorel !” he cried. “ If I could only paint as well as I can 
see ! Come down, child ; you are good, indeed, to stand so long 
and so patiently.” 

She obeyed, and jumped off her eminence, and stood beside 
him looking at the picture. 

“Tell me what you think,” said the painter. “ You see — it 
is the King’s Daughter. She stands on a peak in Lyonesse and 
looks forth upon the waters. Why ? I know not. She seeks 
the secrets of the future, perhaps. She looks for the coming of 
the Perfect Knight, perhaps. She expects the Heaven that 
waits for every maiden — in this world as well as in the next. 
Every one may interpret the picture for himself. She is young 
— everything is possible to the young. Tell me, Armorel, what 
do you think ?” 

She drew a long breath. “ A-h !” she murmured. “ I have 


96 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


never seen anything like this before. It is not me you have 
painted, Roland. You say it is a picture of me — just to please 
and flatter me. There is my face, yet not my face. All is 
changed. Roland, when I am grown to my full height, shall I 
look like this?” 

“ If you do, when that day comes, I shall be proved to be a 
painter indeed,” he replied. “ If you had seen nothing but your- 
self — your own self — and no more, I would have burned the 
thing. Now you give me hopes.” 

Afterwards Armorel loved best to remember him as he stood 
there beside this unfinished picture, glowing with the thought 
that he had done what he had attempted. The soul was there. 

Out of the chatter of the studio, the endless discussions of 
style and method, he had come down to this simple spot, to live 
for three weeks cut off from the world, with a child who knew 
nothing of these things. He came at a time when his enthu- 
siasm for his work was at its fiercest ; that is, when the early 
studies are beginning to bear fruit, when the hand has acquired 
command of the pencil and can control the brush, and when the 
eye is already trained to color. It was at a time when the young 
artist refuses to look at any but the greatest work, and refuses 
to dream of any future except that of the greatest and noblest 
work. It is a splendid thing to have had, even for a short time, 
these dreams and these enthusiasms. 

“ The picture is finished,” said Armorel, “ and to-morrow you 
will go away and leave me.” The tears welled up in her eyes, 
Why should not the child cry for the departure of this sweet 
friend ? 

“ My dear child,” he said, “ I cannot believe that you will stay 
forever on this desert island.” 

“ I do not want to leave the island. I want to keep you here. 
Why don’t you stay altogether, Roland ? You can paint here. 
Have we made you happy ? Are you satisfied with our way of 
living ? We will change it for you, if you wish.” 

“ No — no — it is not that. I must go home. I must go back 
to my work. But I cannot bear to think of you left alone with 
these old people, with no companions and no friends. The time 
will come when you will leave the place and go away somewhere 
— where people live and talk — ” 

lie reflected that if she went away it might be among people 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


97 


ignorant of art and void of culture. This beautiful child, who 
might have been a princess — she was only a flower-farmer of 
the Scilly Islands. What could she hope or expect ? 

“ I do not want to go into the world,” she went on. “ I am 
afraid, because I am so ignorant. People would laugh at me. 
I would rather stay here always, if you were with me. Then we 
would do nothing but sail and row and go fishing; and you 
could paint and sketch all the time.” 

“ It is impossible, Armorel. You talk like a child. In a year 
or two you will understand that it is impossible. Besides, we 
should both grow old. Think of that. Think of two old people 
going about sailing among the islands forever. I, like Justinian 
Tryeth, bald and bowed and wrinkled ; you, like Dorcas — no, 
no ; you could never grow like Dorcas ; you shall grow serenely, 
beautifully old.” 

“ What would that matter ?” she replied. “ Some day, even, 
one of us would die. What would that matter, either, because 
we should only be parted by a year or two ? Oh ! whether we 
are old or young the sea never grows old, nor the hills and rocks 
— and the sunshine is always the same. And when we die there 
will be a new heaven and a new earth — you can read it in the Book 
of Revelations — but no more sea, no more sea. That I cannot 
understand. How could angels and saints be happy without the 
sea ? If one lives among people in towns I dare say it may be 
disagreeable to grow old, and perhaps to look ugly like poor 
Dorcas, but not, no, not when one lives in such a place as this.” 

“ Where did you get your wisdom, Armorel ?” 

“ Is that wisdom ?” 

“ When I go away, my chief regret will be that I kept talking 
to you about myself. Men are selfish pigs. We should have 
talked about nothing but you. Then I should have learned a 
great deal. See how we miss our opportunities.” 

“ No ; no ; I had nothing to tell you. And you had such a 
great deal to tell me. It was you who taught me that everybody 
ought to try to grow to his full height.” 

“ Did I ? It was only a passing thought. Such things occur 
to one sometimes.” 

She sat down on a boulder and crossed her hands in her lap, 
looking at him seriously and gravely with her great black eyes. 

“ Now,” she said, “ I want to be verv serious. It is my last 
5 


98 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


chance. \Roland, I am resolved that I will try to grow to my full 
height. You are going away to-morrow, and I shall have no one 
to advise me. Give me all the help you can before you go.” 

“ What help can I give you, Armorel ?” 

“ I have been thinking. You have told me all about yourself. 
You are going to be a great artist ; you will give up all your life 
to your work ; when you have grown as tall as you can, every- 
body will congratulate you, and you will be proud and happy. 
But who is to tell me ? How shall I know when I am grown to 
my full height ?” 

“ You have got something more in your mind, Armorel.” 

“ Give me a model, Roland. You always paint from a model 
yourself — you told me so. Now, think of the very best actual 
girl of all the girls you know — the most perfect girl, mind ; she 
must be a girl that I can remember and try to copy. I must 
have something to think of and go by, you know.” 

“ The very best actual girl I know ?” he laughed, with a touch 
of the abominable modern cynicism which no longer believes in 
girls. ‘‘That wouldn’t help you much, I am afraid. You see, 
Armorel, I should not look to the actual girls I know for the best 
girl at all. There is, however ” — he pulled his shadowy mous- 
tache, looking very wise — “ a most wonderful girl — I confess that 
I have never met her, but I have heard of her : the poets keep 
talking about her — and some of the novelists are fond of draw- 
ing her ; I have heard of her, read of her, and dreamed of her. 
Shall I tell you about her ?” 

“ If you please — that is, if she can become my model.” 

“ Perhaps. She is quite a possible girl, Armorel, like your- 
self. That is to say, a girl who may really develop out of certain 
qualities. As for actual girls, there are any number whom one 
knows in a way — one can distinguish them — I mean by their 
-voices, their faces, and their figures, and so forth. But as for 
knowing anything more about them — ” 

“ Tell me, then, about the girl whom you do know, though you 
have never seen her.” 

“ I will, if I can. As for her face — now — ” 

“ Never mind her face,” she interrupted impatiently. 

“ Never mind her face, as you say. Besides, you can look in 
the glass if you want to know her face.” 

“ Yes. That will do,” said Armorel, simply. “ Now go on.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


99 


“First of all, tlien, she is always well dressed, beautifully 
dressed, and with as much taste as the silly fashion of the day 
allows. A woman, you know, though she is the most beautiful 
creature in the whole of animated nature, can never afford to do 
without the adornments of dress. It does not much matter 
how a man goes dressed. He only dresses for warmth. In any 
dress and in any rags a handsome man looks well. But not a 
woman. Her dress either ruins her beauty or it heightens it. 
A woman must always and at all ages look as beautiful as she can. 
Therefore, she arranges her clothes so as to set off her beauty 
when she is young ; to make her seem still beautiful when she 
is past her youth ; and to hide the ravages of time when she is 
old. That is the first thing which I remark about this girl. Of 
course, she doesn’t dress as if her father were a Silver King. 
Such a simple stuff as your gray nun’s cloth, Armorel, is good 
enough to make the most lovely dress.” 

“ She is always well dressed,” his pupil repeated. “ That is 
the first thing.” 

“ She is accomplished, of course,” Roland added airily, as if 
accomplishments were as easy to pick up as the blue and gray 
shells on Porth Bay. “ She understands music and plays on 
some instrument. She knows about art of all kinds — art in 
painting, sculptures, decorations, poetry, literature, music. She 
can talk intelligently about art. And she has trained her eye 
so that she knows good work. She is never carried away by 
shams and humbug.” 

“ She has trained her eye and knows good work,” Armorel 
repeated. 

“Above all, she is sympathetic. She does not talk so as to 
show how clever she is, but to bring out the best points of the 
man she is talking with. Yet when men leave her they forget 
what they have said themselves, and only remember how much 
this girl seems to know.” 

“ Seems to know ?” Armorel looked up. 

“ One woman cannot know everything. But a clever woman 
will know about everything that belongs to her own set. We all 
belong to our own set, and every set talks its own language — scien- 
tific, artistic, whatever it is. This girl does not pretend to enter 
into the arena ; but she knows the rules of the game, and talks ac- 
cordingly. She is always intelligent, gracious, and sympathetic.” 


100 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ She is intelligent, gracious, and sympathetic,” Armorel re- 
peated. “ Is she gracious to everybody, even to people she does 
not like ?” 

“ In society,” said Roland, “ we like everybody. We are all 
perfectly well bred and well behaved : we always say the kindest 
things about each other.” 

“ Now you are saying one thing and meaning another. That 
is like your friend Dick Stephenson. Don’t, Roland.” 

“Well, then, I have very little more to say. This girl, how- 
ever, is always a woman’s woman.” 

“ What is that ?” 

“ Difficult to explain. A wise lady once advised me when I 
went courting, first to make quite sure that the girl was a 
woman’s woman. I think she meant that other girls should speak 
and think well of her. I haven’t always remembered the advice, 
it is true, but — ” Here he stopped short and in some confusion, 
remembering that this was not an occasion for plenary confession. 

But Armorel only nodded gravely. “ I shall remember,” she 
said. 

“ The rest you know. She loves everything that is beautiful 
and good. She hates everything that is coarse and ugly. That 
is all.” 

“ Thank you — I shall remember,” she repeated. “ Roland, 
you must have thought a good deal about girls to know so 
much.” 

He blushed : he really did. He blushed a rich and rosy red. 

“ An artist, you know,” he said, “ has to draw beautiful girls. 
Naturally he thinks of the lovely soul behind the lovely face. 
These things are only commonplaces. You yourself, Armorel — 
you — will shame me, presently — when you have grown to that 
full height — for drawing a picture so insufficient of the Perfect 
Woman.” 

He stooped slightly, as if he would have kissed her forehead. 
Why not ? She w r as but a child. But he refrained. 

“ Let us go home,” he said, with a certain harshness in his 
voice. “The sun is down. The clouds have covered up the 
belt of blue. You have seen your splendid future, Armorel, and 
you are back in the gray and sunless present. It grows cold. 
To-morrow, I think, we may have rain. Let us go home, child ; 
let us go home.” 



“ He stooped slightly, as if he would, have kissed her forehead 


























AHMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


101 


CHAPTER X. 

MR. FLETCHER RETURNS FOR HIS BAG. 

ITalf an hour later the blinds were down, the fire was bright- 
ly burning, the red firelight was merrily dancing about the room, 
and the table was pushed back. Then Dorcas and Justinian 
came in — the two old serving-folk, bent with age, gray-headed, 
toothless — followed by Chcssun — thin and tall, silent and sub- 
dued. And Armorel, taking her violin, tuned it, and turned to 
her old master for instructions, just as she had done on the first 
and every following night of Roland’s stay. 

“ ‘ Barley Break,’ ” said Justinian. 

Armorel struck up that well-known air. Then, as before, the 
ancient dame started, moved uneasily, sat upright, and opened 
her eyes and began to talk. But to-night she was not rambling : 
she did not begin one fragment of reminiscence and break off 
in the middle. She started with a clear story in her mind, 
which she began at the beginning and carried on. When Armo- 
rel saw her thus disposed, she stopped playing “ Barley Break,” 
which may amuse the aged mind and recall old merriment, but 
lacks earnestness. 

“ Put on thy smock o’ Monday,’ ” said Justinian. 

This ditty lends itself to more sustained thought. Armorel 
put more seriousness into it than the theme of the music would 
seem to warrant. The old lady, however, seemed to like it, and 
continued her narrative without interrupting it at any point. 
Armorel also observed that, though she addressed the assembled 
multitude generally, she kept glancing furtively at Roland. 

“ The night was terrible,” said the ancient dame, speaking 
distinctly and connectedly ; “ never was such a storm known — 
we could hear the waves beating and dashing about the islands 
louder than the roaring of the wind, and we heard the minute- 
gun, so that there was little sleep for any one. At daybreak we 
were all on the shore, out on Shark Point. Sure enough, on the 


102 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


Castinicks the ship lay, breaking up fast — a splendid East-India- 
man she was. Her masts were gone and her bows were stove 
in — as soon as the light got strong enough we could see so 
much ; and the shore covered already with wreck. But not a 
sign of passengers or crew. Then my husband’s father, who 
was always first, saw something, and ran into the water up to 
his middle and dragged ashore a spar. And, sure enough, a 
man was lashed to the spar. When father hauled the man up he 
was quite senseless, and he seemed dead, so that another quar- 
ter of an hour would have finished him, even if his head had 
not been knocked against a rock, or the spar turned over and 
drowned him. Just as father was going to call for help to drag 
him up, he saw a little leather bag hanging from his neck by a 
leather thong. There were others about, all the people of Sam- 
son — fifty of them — men, women, and children — all busy collect- 
ing the things that had been washed ashore, and some up to 
their waists in the water after the things still floating about. But 
nobody was looking. Therefore, father, thinking it was a dead 
man, whipped out his knife, cut the leather thong, and slipped 
the bag into his own pocket, not stopping to look at it. No 
one saw him, mind — no one — not even your father, Justinian, 
who was close beside him at the time.” 

“ Ay, ay,” said Justinian, if father had seen it, naturally — ” 
But his voice died away, and Roland was left to wonder what 
under such circumstances a native of Samson would have done. 

u No one saw it. Father thought the man was dead. But 
he wasn’t. Presently he moved. Then they carried him up the 
hill to the farm — this very house — and laid him down before 
the fire — just at your feet, Armorel — and I was standing by. 

1 Get him a cordial,’ says father. So we gave him a dram, and 
he drank it and opened his eyes. He was a gentleman — we 
could see that — not a common sailor : not a common man.” 

Here her head dropped, and she seemed to be losing herself 
again, 

“ Try her with a Saraband,” said Justinian, as if a deter- 
mined effort had to be made. Armorel changed her tune. A 
Saraband lends itself to a serious and even solemn turn of 
thought. As a dance it requires the best manners, the bravest 
dress, and the most dignified air. It will be seen, therefore, 
that to a mind bent upon a grave narrative of deeds lamentable 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


103 


and fateful, the Saraband, played in a proper frame of mind, 
may prove sympathetic. The ancient lady lifted her head, 
strengthened by the opening bars, which, indeed, are very 
strong, and resumed her story. Armorel, to be sure, and all 
her hearers, knew the history well, having heard it every night 
in disjointed bits. The Tale of the Stolen Treasure was famil- 
iar to her ; it was more than familiar, it was a bore ; the Fam-, 
ily Doom seemed unjust to her ; it disturbed her sense of provi- 
dential benevolence ; yet she threw all her soul into the Saraband 
in order to prolong by a few minutes the waking and conscious 
moments of this remote ancestress. A striking illustration, had 
the others understood it, of filial piety. 

“ But I was standing close by father,” she went on — “ I was 
beside him on the beach, and I saw it. I saw him cut the thong 
and slip the bag into his pocket. When he came to himself I 
whispered to father, ‘There’s lrrs bag; you’ve got his bag in 
your pocket.’ ‘ I know,’ he said — rough. ‘ Hold your tongue, 
girl.’ So I said no more, but waited. Then the man opened 
his eyes and tried to sit up ; but he couldn’t, being still dizzy 
with the beating of the waves. But he looked at us, wondering 
where he was. ‘ You are ashore, master,’ said father. ‘ The 
only one of all the ship’s company that is, so far.’ ‘ Ashore ?’ 
he asked. ‘ Ay, ashore ; where else would you be ? Your ship’s 
in splinters ; your captain and your crew are dead men all. But 
you’re ashore.’ With that the man shut his eyes and lay quiet 
for a time. Then he opened them again. ‘ Where am I?’ he 
asked. ‘ You are on Samson, in Scilly,’ I told him. Then he 
tried to get up again, but he couldn’t. And so we carried him 
up-stairs and laid him on the bed. 

“ He was in bed for nigh upon six weeks. Never was any 
man so near his latter end. I nursed him all the time. He 
had a fever, and his head wandered. In his rambling he told 
me who he was. His name was Robert Fletcher — Robert 
Fletcher,” she repeated, nodding to Roland with strange sig- 
nificance. “ A brave gentleman, and handsome and well-man- 
nered. He had been in the service of an Indian king ; and, 
though he was only thirty, he had made his fortune and was 
bringing it home, thinking that he would do nothing more all 
his life but just sit down and enjoy himself. All his fortune 
was in the bag. When lie recovered he told me that the last 


104 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


thing he remembeped, before he was washed off the ship, was 
feeling for the safety of his bag. And it was gone. And he 
was a beggar. Poor man ! And I knew all the time where the 
bag was and who had it. But I could not tell him. If father 
sinned when he kept the bag, I sinned as well, because I knew 
he kept it. If father was punished when his son was drowned, 
that son was my husband, and I was punished too.” 

She stopped, and it seemed as if for the evening she had run 
down, but Armorel stimulated her again and she went on, looking 
more and more at the face of the stranger that was in their gates. 

“ While he lay ill and was like to die, father was uneasy — I 
knew why. He wanted him to die, because then he could keep 
the treasure with a quiet mind. 1 All’s ours that comes ashore,’ 
that’s what we used to say. He never confessed his thoughts 
— but I, who knew what was in the bag, guessed them very well. 

“ The stranger began to recover, and father fell into a gloomy 
fit, and would go and sit by himself for hours. Nobody dared 
ask him — for he was a man of short temper and rough in his 
speech — what was the matter with him, but I knew very well. 
He was gloomy because he didn’t want to lose that bag. But 
the man got better, and at last quite well, and one morning he 
came down dressed in clothes that father lent him, because his 
own were ruined in the washing of him ashore, and he bade us 
all farewell. ' ‘ Captain Rosevean,’ he said, very earnestly , 1 when 
I left India I was rich ; I was carrying all my fortune home with 
me in a small compass, for safety, as I thought. I was going 
to be a rich man, and work no more. Well — I have escaped 
with my life, and that is all. If I were not a beggar I would 
offer you half my fortune for saving my life. As it is, I can 
offer you nothing but my gratitude.’ 

“ So he shook hands with father, who stood as white as a 
sheet, for all he was a ruddy-faced man and inclined to brandy. 
‘ And farewell, Mistress Ursula,’ he said. ‘ Farewell, my kind 
nurse.’ So he kissed me, being a courteous gentleman. 1 1 
shall come back again to see you,’ he said ; ‘ I shall surely come 
back. Look to see me some day, when you least expect me.’ 
So he went away, and they rowed him over to the Port, and he 
sailed to Penzance. Father went to his own room, where the 
treasure was. And my heart sank, heavy as lead. The more I 
thought of the wickedness, the heavier fell my heart. There 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


105 


was. father and his son, my husband, and myself and my own 
son not yet born. The hand of the Lord would be upon us for 
that wickedness. I ought to have cried out to the stranger be- 
fore he went away that his treasure was safe and that we were 
keeping it for him. But I didn’t. Then I tried to comfort my- 
self. 1 said that when he came again I would give him back 
the bag, even if I had to steal it from father’s chest. 

“ It was a long time ago — they are all gone, swallowed up by 
the sea — which was right, because we stole the treasure from the 
sea. He never came back. I looked for him to come after my 
husband was drowned, and after my son went too, and my 
grandson — but he never came again as he promised. And at 
last, at last ” — her voice rose almost to a shriek, and everybody 
jumped in his chair ; but Armorel continued to play the Sara- 
band slowly and with much expression — “ at last he has come 
back, and we are saved. All that are left of us are saved. Ar- 
morel, my child, you are saved. Your bones shall not lie rot- 
ting among the sea-weed ; your flesh shall not be devoured by 
crabs and conger-eels; you may sail without fear among the 
islands. For he has kept his promise and has come back.” 

Then she rose — she who had not stood upon her feet for 
three years — actually rose and stood up, or seemed to stand ; the 
red light, playing on her face, made her eyes shine like two balls 
of fire. “ You,” she cried, pointing her long skinny finger at 
Roland. “ You ! oh ! you have come at last. You have suf- 
fered all that innocent blood to be shed ; but you have come at 
last.” She sank back among her pillows, but her finger still 
pointed at the stranger. “ Sir,” she said now, with tremulous 
voice, “ you are welcome. Late though it is, Mr. Fletcher, you 
are welcome. When you came a day or two ago I wondered, 
being now very old and foolish, if it were really you. Now I 
know. I remember, though it is nearly eighty years ago. You 
are welcome again to Samson, Mr. Fletcher. You find me 
changed, no doubt. I knew you would keep your promise and 
come again, some time or other. As for you, I see little change. 
You are dressed differently, and when you were here last your 
hair was worn in another fashion. But you are no older to 
look at. You are not changed at all by time. You would not 
know me again. How should you? I suppose you knew — 
somebody told you perhaps — that the bag was safe after all. 

5 * 


100 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


That knowledge has kept you young. Nothing short of that 
knowledge could have kept you young. I assure you, sir, had I 
known where to find you I would have taken the bag and its 
contents to you long, long ago. And now you are come back 
in search of it.” 

“ It was eighty years ago !” Dorcas whispered to Chessun, 
shuddering. “ He must be more than a hundred !” 

“ A hundred years !” returned her daughter, -with pallid cheeks. 
“ It isn’t in nature, lie looks no more than twenty. Mother, 
is he a man and alive ?” 

“Pretend that you are Mr. Fletcher,” whispered Armorel. 
“ Do not contradict her. Say something.” 

“ It is a long time ago,” said Roland. “ I should have kept 
my promise much sooner. And as for that bag — you saved 
my life, you know. Pray keep the bag. It has long been for- 
gotten.” 

“ Keep the bag ? Do you know what is in it ? Do you know 
what it is worth ? That, Mr. Fletcher, is your politeness. We, 
who have suffered so much from the possession of the bag, can- 
not believe that you have forgotten it, because if we have suf- 
fered for our guilt you must have suffered through that guilt. 
Else there would be no justice. No justice at all unless you 
have suffered too. Else all those lives have been wasted and 
thrown away.” 

The old lady spoke with the voice and firmness of a woman 
of fifty. She looked strong ; she sat up erect. Armorel played 
on, now softly, now loudly. The serving-folk looked on open- 
mouthed ; the women with terror undisguised. Was this gen- 
tleman, so young and so pleasant, none other than the man 
whose injury had brought all these drownings upon the family ? 
Nearly eighty years ago that happened. Then, he must be a 
ghost! What else could he be? No human creature could 
come back after eighty years still so young. 

“ When I said, madam,” Roland explained, “ that I had for- 
gotten the bag, what I meant was that after losing it so long I 
had quite abandoned all hope of finding it again. I assure you 
that I have not come here in search of it. In fact, I thought it 
was lying at the bottom of the sea, where so many other treas- 
ures lie.” 

“ It is not at the bottom of the sea, Mr. Fletcher. You shall 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


107 


have it again, to-morrow. You are still so young that you can 
enjoy your fortune. Make good use of it, sir, and do not forget 
the poor. I have counted the contents again and again. They 
are not things that wear out and rust, are they ? No, no. You 
must often have laughed to think that the moth and the worm 
cannot destroy that treasure. You will be very pleased to have 
it back.” 

“ I shall he very pleased indeed,” he echoed, “ to have my 
treasure again.” 

“ Face and voice unchanged.” The old lady shook her head. 
“And after eighty years. It is a miracle, yet not a greater 
miracle than the vengeance which has pursued this house so long. 
This single crime has been visited upon the third and fourth 
generation. ’Tis time that punishment should cease at last — 
cease at last ! I must tell you, Mr. Fletcher,” she went on, “ that 
when my husband was drowned and my father-in-law died, I 
took possession of the bag and everything else. I said nothing 
to my son. Why ? Because, until the owner of the stolen bag 
came hack, the curse was on him and his children. No — no ; I 
would not let him know. But I knew very well what would 
happen to all of them. Oh ! yes ; I knew, and I waited. But 
he was happy, and his son and his grandson and his great-grand- 
son, until they were drowned, one after the other. And still you 
stayed away.” 

“ Madam, had I known, I would have returned fifty years ago 
and more, in time to have saved them all.” 

“You might have come sooner, sir, permit me to say, and so 
have saved some.” It was wonderful how erect the old lady 
held herself, and with what firmness and precision she spoke. 

“ There is now only one left — the child Armorel. To-morrow, 
sir, you shall have your bag again. Once more you are our 
guest ; this time, I hope you will leave a blessing instead of a 
curse upon the house.” 

At this moment Armorel ceased playing. Then this ancient 
lady stopped talking. She looked round ; her eyes lost their 
fire ; her face its expression ; her mouth its firmness ; she fell 
back in her pillows, and her head dropped. 

Dorcas and Chessun rose and carried her to her own room. 
The old man got up, too, and shambled out. Armorel pushed 
the table into its place, and lit the candles. The incident was 


108 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


closed. In the morning the old lady had forgotten every- 
thing. 

“ Almost,” said Roland, “she has made me believe that my 
name is Fletcher. Shall I to-morrow morning ask her for the 
bag ? Where is that bag ? Armorel, it is a true story. I am 
quite certain of it.” 

“ Oh, yes, it is true. Justinian knows about the wreck, though 
it happened before he was born. Mr. Fletcher was the only man 
saved of all the ship and company — captain, officers, crew, and 
passengers — the only one. He was rescued by Captain Rose- 
vean himself and brought here. He had the bedroom where 
you sleep — the bedroom which was my brother Emanuel’s room. 
Here he lay ill a long time, but recovered and went away.” 

“ And the bag ?” 

“ I know nothing about the bag. That has gone long ago, I 
suppose, with all the money that my people made by smuggling 
and by piloting. I have seen her watching you for some days 
past ; I thought she would speak to you last night. To-morrow 
she will have forgotten everything.” 

“ I suppose I have some kind of resemblance to Mr. Robert 
Fletcher, presumably deceased. Well — but, Armorel, this is a 
fortunate evening. The family luck has come back — I have 
brought it back. The ancient one said so, and you are saved. 
She may call me Fletcher — call me Tryeth — call me any name 
that flyeth — if she only calls me him who arrived in time to save 
you, Armorel.” 


CHAPTER XI. 
roland’s letter. 

Roland went away. Like Mr. Robert Fletcher, he promised 
to return, and, like her great-great-grandmother, but for other 
reasons, Armorel treasured this promise. Also like Mr. Robert 
Fletcher, now presumably deceased, Roland went away with the 
sense of having left something behind him. Not his heart, dear 
reader. A young man of twenty-one does not give away his 
heart in the old-fashioned way any longer ; lie carries it about 
with him, carefully kept in its proper place. What Roland had 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


109 


left behind him, for a while, was a part of himself. It would 
perhaps come back to him in good time, but for the present it 
remained on Samson, and discoursed to the rest of him in Lon- 
don whenever he would listen, on the beauties of that archi- 
pelago and the graces of the child Armorel. And this part of 
himself, which haunted Samson, made him sit down and write 
a letter. It would have been a tender, a sorrowful, an affection- 
ate letter had it not been for that other part of him — the greater 
part — which went to London. That other part of him remon- 
strated. “ She is but a simple country girl,” it said. “ Her 
future will be to marry a simple Scillonian. Why disturb her 
mind ? Why seek to plant the seeds of discontent under the 
guise of culture? Leave her — leave her to herself. Forget 
those dark eyes, in whose depths there seemed to lie so sweet, 
so great a soul. Believe me, there was nothing at all behind 
those eyes but ignorance and curiosity. How could there be 
anything ? Leave her in peace. Or, since you must write, let 
it be a cold letter — friendly, but fatherly — and let her under- 
stand clearly that the visit can produce no further consequences 
whatever.” Thus the London half of him — the bigger half. 
Perhaps his friend Dick Stephenson remonstrated in the same 
strain. But the lesser half insisted on writing a letter of some 
kind — and had his way. 

He wrote a letter and sent it off. 

It was the very first letter that had ever been sent to Samson. 
Of that I am quite sure. No letters ever reached that island. 
If people had business with Samson they transacted it at the 
Port with Justinian or Peter. Of course it was the first letter 
that had ever been received by Armorel. Peter brought it across 
for her. He had wrapped the unaccustomed thing in brown 
paper for fear the spray should fall upon it. Armorel drew it 
forth from its covering and gazed upon it with the wonder of a 
child who gets an unexpected toy. She read over the address 
a dozen times : “ ‘ Miss Rosevean 1 — look at it, Dorcas. What a 
pity you cannot read : ‘ Miss Rosevean ’ — he might have written 
‘ Armorel ’ — ‘ Island of Samson, Scilly.’ Of course, it is from 
Roland. No one else would write to me.” Then she opened it 
carefully, so as not to injure any part of the writing — indeed, 
Roland possessed that desirable, but very rare, gift of a very 
beautiful hand. No penman of the monastery, no scrivener of 


110 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


a later age, no Arab or Persian scribe, could write a more beau- 
tiful hand. It was a hand in which every letter was clearly 
formed, as if it made a picture of itself, and every word was a 
group, like the eastern isles of Scilly, to be admired by the whole 
world. 

The letter began — the London portion conceding so much — 
with a pen-and-ink sketch of the writer’s head ; if it was just a 
little idealized, who shall blame the limner? This was delight- 
ful. Armorel had no portrait of her friend. What would fol- 
low after such a beautiful beginning ? Then the writing began, 
and Armorel addressed herself seriously to the mastering of, 
and the meaning of, the letter. I blush to record the fact, but 
Armorel read handwriting slowly. Consider. Since she left 
school she had seen none ; while at school she had seen little. 
People easily forget such a simple thing, though we who write 
all day long cannot understand how a man can forget how to 
write. Yet there are many working-men who cannot read 
handwriting, nor can they themselves write. They have had no 
occasion, all their lives, to use either accomplishment, and so 
have readily forgotten it — a fact which shows the profound 
wisdom of the school boards in teaching spelling. Armorel 
could read the letter, but she read it slowly. 

It seemed, when she read it first, sentence by sentence, a really 
beautiful letter — regarded as a letter in the abstract. After she 
had read it two or three times over, and had mastered the whole 
document, she began to understand that the writer of it was 
not the man she remembered, not the man whose memory she 
loved and cherished, not at all her friend Roland Lee. All the 
old camaraderie was gone. It was the letter of another man 
altogether. It was cold and stiff. The coldness went to the 
girl’s heart. She had never known Roland to be cold. Where 
was the sympathy which formerly flowed in magnetic currents 
from one to the other ? Where was the brotherly interest — she 
called it brotherly ? The writer spoke, it is true, with gratitude 
overwhelming, of his stay on the island and her hospitality, but, 
good gracious ! Armorel wanted no thanks. His visit had 
made her happy ; he knew that — why should he take up a page 
and a half in returning thanks to her when her own heart was 
full of gratitude to him ? He said that the three weeks he had 
spent among the islands had been a holiday which he could 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


Ill 


never forget — this was very good, so far, but then he spoiled all 
by adding that he should not readily forget — “ readily forget ” 
he wrote — his fair companion and guide among those labyrinth- 
ine waters. “ Fair companion !” What had fairness to do 
with it ? Armorel had been his pupil ; he taught her all day 
long. She did not want to be called his fair companion ; that 
was mockery; she wanted to be called his dear friend or his 
dear sister. That would have gone straight to her heart. She 
expected at least so much when she opened the letter. But 
worse — far worse — was to follow. He actually spoke of the 
possibilities of their never meeting again, the world (outside 
Scilly) being so very wide. Never to meet again ! And he 
had promised to return ; he had faithfully promised ; why, he 
had only to take the steamer from Penzance ; Samson Island 
would not sail away. Why did he not rather say when he was 
to be expected ? Worst of all, he spoke of her forgetting him. 
Oh ! how could she forget him ! As for the rest of the letter, 
the paternal advice to continue in the path of industry, and so 
forth, no clergyman in the pulpit could speak more wisely ; but 
these things touched not the girl. Woman wants affection 
rather than wisdom, even though she understands, or has, at 
least, been told, that Wisdom delivereth from the way of the 
Evil Man. 

Armorel at length laid the letter down with a sigh and a 
tear. She kept it in her pocket for some days, and read it every 
day ; but with increasing sadness. Finally, she laid it in a 
drawer where were all the sketches, fragments of illustration, 
and outline drawings which Roland had given her. She would 
read it no longer. She would wait till Roland came back, 
and she would ask him what it meant. Perhaps it was the 
way of the world to be so cold and so constrained in letter- 
writing. 

There came a box with the letter. It contained books — quite 
a large number of books — selected by Roland with the view of 
suiting the case of one who dwells upon a desert island. It 
was just as if Captain Woodes Rogers had left Alexander alone 
upon Juan Fernandez and gone home to make up for him a 
parcel of books intended to show him what went on in the 
wider world. There were also drawing materials, colors, brush- 
es, pencils, books of instruction, and books of music. Roland 


112 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


the Fatherly — the London part of Roland — neglected nothing 
that might be solidly serviceable to the Young Person. Observe, 
here, one of those black gaps of ignorance already spoken of in 
this girl of the Lonely Isles. She did not know that an answer 
to the letter was absolutely necessary. In the London studio 
the writer sat wondering why no answer came. He had been 
so careful, too ; not a word which could be misunderstood ; he 
had been so truly fatherly. And yet no reply. 

Nobody was at hand to tell Armorel that she must sit down 
and write some kind of an answer. She tried, in fact ; she made 
several attempts. But she could not write anything that satis- 
fied her. The coldness of the letter chilled her. She wanted 
to write as she had talked with him, all out of the fulness of 
her heart. IIow could she write to this frigid creature ? The 
writer of such a letter could not be her dear companion who 
laughed and made her laugh, sang and made her sing, made pict- 
ures for her, told her all about his own private ambitions, and 
had no secrets from her ; it was a strange man who wrote to 
her and signed the name of Roland Lee. The real Roland 
would never have hinted at the possibility of her forgetting 
him, or at the chance of their never meeting again. The real 
Roland would have written to say when he was coming again. 
She could not reply to this impostor. 

Therefore, she never answered that letter at all ; and so she 
got no more letters. It was a pity, because, had she written 
what was in her mind, for very pity the real Roland would have 
returned to her. Once, and once only, the voice of Roland came 
to her across the sea. And then it was a changed voice. He 
spoke no more. But he would come again. He said he would 
come again. Every day she sat on the hill beside the barrow 
and gazed across the Road. She could see the pier of Hugh 
Town and the vessels in the Port ; perhaps Roland had come 
over from Penzance by the morning steamer, and would shortly 
sail across the Road and leap out upon the beach and run to 
meet and greet her, with both hands outstretched, the light of 
affection in his eyes, and the laugh of welcome in his voice. 
She was graver and more silent than before ; she did not sing 
so often as she walked among the ferns ; she did not prattle to 
Chessun and Dorcas while she made her cakes and puddings. 
But nobody noticed any change in her ; the serving-women, if 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


113 


they observed any, would have said only that Armorel was grow- 
into a woman already. 

The autumn changed to winter. Roland would not come in 
winter, when the sea is stormy and there is little sunshine. She 
must wait now until spring. Meantime on Samson, where are 
no trees except those wizened and crooked little trees of the 
orchard, there is not much to mark the winter except the cold 
wind and the short days. Here there is never frost or snow, 
hail or ice. The brown turf is much the same in December as 
in August, the dead fern is not so yellow, the dead and dying 
leaves of the bramble are not so splendid. The wind is colder, 
the sky is more gray ; otherwise winter makes little difference 
in the external aspect of this archipelago. When the short 
days begin, the brown fields of the flower-farms clothe them- 
selves with the verdure of spring ; before the new year has fair- 
ly set in, some of the fresh delicate flow T ers have been already 
cut and laid in the hot-house to be sent to Covent Garden. The 
harvest of the year begins with its first day, and they reap it 
from January to May. 

There are plenty of things on such a farm for a girl to do. 
Armorel did not, if you please, sit down to weep. But she 
daily recalled with tender regret every one of the pleasant days 
of that companionship. She kept her promise, too ; she read 
something every morning in the books which Roland had sent 
her ; every afternoon she attempted to carry on the drawing- 
lesson by herself ; she practised her violin diligently ; and every 
evening she played the old tunes to the old lady and awakened 
her once more to life and memory. There was no change, ex- 
cept that everything now was colored by what he had said. She 
was to grow to her full height — he had told her how — but at 
present she hardly saw her way to carrying out those instructions, 
ller full height ! Ignorant of the truth — since such a girl grown 
to her full height would be so tall as to be out of all proportion, 
not only to Samson, but even to St. Mary’s itself. 

Sometimes one falls into the habit of associating a single per- 
son with an idea, a thought, an anticipation, a place. Whenever 
the mind turns to this thought, the person is present. For ex- 
ample, there is a street in London which I have learned from 
long habit to associate with a second-hand bookseller. He was 
a gentle creature, full of reading, who had known many men. 


114 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


I sometimes sat at the back of his shop conversing with him. 
Sometimes a twelvemonth would pass without my seeing him at 
all. But always when I think of this street I think of this old 
gentleman. The other day I passed through it. Alas ! the 
shutters were up ; the house was to let ; my gentle friend was 
gone. Armorel associated her future — the unknown future — 
with Boland. Suppose that when that future should be the 
present she should find the shutters up, the house deserted, the 
tenant dead ! 

The harvest of the flowers was well begun ; the boxes piled 
in the hold of the steamer merrily danced in the roll of the At- 
lantic waves as the Lady of the Isles made her way to Penzance ; 
in London the delicate narcissus and the jonquil returned to the 
dinner-table and stood about in glasses. Roland Lee bought 
them and took them home to his studio, where he sat looking at 
them, reminded of Armorel — who had never even answered his 
letter. Perhaps the flowers came from Samson. Why did the 
girl send him no answer to his letter ? Then his memory went 
back to that little island with its two hills, and its barrows, and 
the quiet house — and to the girl who lived there. On what rock 
of Samson was she sitting? Where was she at that moment? 
Gazing somewhere over the wild waste of waters, the wind blow- 
ing about her curls, and the beating of the waves in her ears. 
She had forgotten him. Why not ? He was only a visitor of 
a week or two. She was nothing but a child — and an ignorant 
farmer-girl living on a desert island. Ignorant Roland ? That 
was not the word. He saw her once more standing in the mid- 
dle of the room, the ruddy firelight in her eyes and on her cheeks, 
playing “ Singleton’s Slip ” and “ Prince Rupert’s March,” while 
the ancient lady mopped and mowed and discoursed of other 
days. And again : he saw her standing on the beach when he 
said farewell, the tears in her eyes, her voice choked. Then he 
longed again, as he had longed then, to take her in his arms, 
even in the presence of Peter the boy, to soothe and kiss her and 
bid her weep no more, because he would never, never leave her. 

So strong was the impression made upon this young man by 
this child of fifteen that after six months spent in the society 
of many other girls, of charms more matured, he still remembered 
her, and thought of her with that kind of yearning regret which 
is perilously akin to love. An untaught, ignorant girl, whose 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


115 


charm lay in her innocent confidence, her soft black eyes, and 
the beauty of the maiden emerging from the child, could hardly 
make a permanent impression on a man of the world, even a 
young man of only twenty-one. The time would go on, and 
the girl would be forgotten, except as a pleasant memory asso- 
ciated with a delightful holiday. An artist is, perhaps, above 
his fellows, liable to swift and sudden changes : his mind dwells 
continually on beauty ; all lovely girls have not black hair and 
black eyes. Apollo himself, the god of artists, loved not only 
all the nine Muses and all the three Graces, but a good many 
nymphs and princesses as well — such is the artistic temper- 
ament — so catholic is its admiration of beauty. 


CHAPTER XII. 

THE CHANGE. 

“ A change,” said Roland, “ will surely come, and that before 
long. I cannot believe” — Armorel remembered the words af- 
terwards — “ that you will stay on this island forever.” It need- 
ed no unusual gift of prophecy to foretell impending change 
when the most important member of the household was nearing 
her hundredth year. 

The change foretold actually came in April, when the flower- 
fields had lost their beauty and the harvest of Scilly was nearly 
over. Late blossoms of daffodils still reared their heads among 
the thick leaves, though their blooming companions had all 
been cut off to grace London tables ; there were broad patches 
of wall-flower little regarded ; the leaves of the bulbs were 
drooping and already turning brown ; these were the signs of 
approaching summer to the Scillonian, who has already had his 
spring. On the adjacent island of Great Britain the primrose 
clustered on the banks ; the hedges of the West Country were 
splendid, putting forth tender leaves over a wealth of wild-flow- 
ers ; the chestnut buds were swollen and sticky, ready to burst. 
Do we not know the signs and tokens of coming spring? On 
Scilly, the lengthening day — there are no hedges and no trees 
to speak of — the completion of the flower harvest, and the 


116 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


drooping of the daffodil leaves in the fields are the chief signs 
of. spring. Yet there are other signs ; if there are no woods to 
show the tender leaf of spring, there are the green shoots of 
the fern on the down ; and there are the birds. The puffin has 
already come back ; he comes in his thousands ; he arrives in 
April, and he departs in September ; whence he cometh and 
whither he goeth no man hath ever learned nor can naturalist 
discover. At the same time comes the guillemot, and some- 
times the solan-goose ; the tern and the sheerwater come too, if 
they come at all, in spring; but the wild ducks and the wild 
geese depart before the flower-harvest is finished. 

Arm orel got up one morning in April a little earlier than 
usual. It was five o’clock; the sun was rising over Telegraph 
Hill on St. Mary’s. She ran down the stairs, opened the door, 
and stood in the porch drawing a deep breath. No one was as 
yet stirring on Samson, though I think Peter was beginning to 
turn in his bed. Out at sea Armorel saw a great steamer, 
homeward bound, perhaps an Australian liner; the level rays 
of the early sun shone on her spars and made them stand out 
clear and fine against the sky ; behind her streamed her long 
white cloud of smoke and steam, hanging over the water, light 
and feathery. There were no other ships visible. The air was 
cold, but the sun of April w r as already strong. Armorel shiv- 
ered, caught her hat and ran over the hill, singing as she went, 
not knowing that in the night, while she slept, the Angel of 
Death had visited the house. 

About seven o’clock she came back, having completely cir- 
cumnavigated the island of Samson, and made, as usual, many 
curious observations and discoveries in the manners and cus- 
toms of puffins, terns, and shags. She returned in the cheerful 
mood which belongs to youth, health, and readiness for break- 
fast. She instantly perceived, however, on arriving, that some- 
thing had happened — something unusual. For Peter stood in 
the porch ; what was Peter doing in the porch at seven o’clock 
in the morning, when he ought to have been ministering to the 
pigs ? Fi/rther, Peter was standing in the attitude of a boy 
who waits to be sent on an errand. It is an attitude of expec- 
tant readiness — of zeal according to duty — of activity bought 
and freely rendered. You will observe this attitude in all office- 
boys except telegraph boys ; they never assume it ; they affect 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


117 


no zeal ; they betray no eagerness to put in a fair day’s work. 
Such an attitude would lack the dignity due to a government 
officer. And at sight of Armorel, Peter hung his head as one 
who sorrows, or is ashamed or repentant. What did he do that 
for? What had happened ? Why should he hang his head? 

She asked these questions of Peter, who only shook his head 
and pointed within. She heard Justinian’s voice giving some 
directions. She also heard Dorcas and Chessun. They were 
all three speaking in low voices. She hurried in. The door of 
the old lady’s bedroom — that sacred apartment into which no 
one except the two handmaidens had ever ventured — stood wide 
open ; not only that, but Justinian himself was in the room — 
actually in the room — and beside the bed. Then Armorel un- 
derstood what had happened. On no other condition would 
Justinian be admitted to his old mistress’s room. On the other 
side of the bed stood Dorcas and Chessun. Seeing Armorel at 
the door, these two ladies instantly lifted up their voices and 
wailed aloud — nay, they shrieked and screamed their lamenta- 
tions as if it were the first time in the world’s history that death 
had carried ofi: an aged woman. This they did by a kind of 
instinct ; the thing, though they knew it not, was a survival. 
In ancient times it was the custom in Lyonesse that the women 
should all w 7 ail and weep and shriek and beat their breasts and 
tear their hair and cut their cheeks with their nails while the 
body of the dead king or w T arrior was carried up the slope of 
the hill to be laid in its kist-vaen and covered with its barrow 
on Samson Island. 

They wailed aloud, then, because it had always been the right 
thing for the women of Samson to do. Otherwise, when one 
so ancient dies at last, mind and memory gone before, what 
place is there for wailing and weeping? One natural tear we 
drop, for all must die ; but grief belongs to the death-bed of the 
young. There needed no shriek of the women nor any one’s 
speech to tell Armorel that the white face upturned on the bed 
was not the face of a living woman. They had folded the dead 
hands across her breast ; the eyes were closed ; the 'countless 
wrinkles of the aged face were smoothed out; the lips were 
parted with a wan smile. After many, many years, Ursula, the 
widow, was gone to rejoin her husband. Pray Heaven her de- 
sire be granted, and that she rise again young and beautiful, 


118 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


such a woman as that ill-starred sailor, dragged to the bottom 
of the sea by the weight of Robert Fletcher’s bag, had loved in 
life! 

Peter presently sailed across the Road, and returned with the 
doctor. It is the part of the doctor not only to usher the new- 
born into life, but to bar or open the gates of the tomb ; with- 
out him very few of us die, and without him no one can be 
buried. This man of science graciously expressed his willing- 
ness to acknowledge, though he had not been called in, that the 
deceased died of old age. Then he went back. 

In the evening there was no music. The violin remained in 
its place ; the great chair was empty ; no one brought out the 
spinning-wheel ; the table was not pushed back. How was the 
long evening to be got through without the violin ? How could 
those ancient tunes be played any more in the presence of that 
empty chair ? When the serving-folk came in as usual and sat 
round the fire, and the women sighed and moaned, and Justinian 
stimulated the coals to a flame, and the ruddy light played upon 
their faces, Armorel began to think that a continuance of these 
evenings would be tedious. Then they began to talk, the con- 
versation naturally turning on Death and Judgment, and the 
prospects of heaven and the departed. 

“ She was not one of them,” said Dorcas, “ as would never 
talk of such things. I’ve often heard her say she wanted to 
rise again young and beautiful, same as she was when her hus- 
band was took, so that he should love her again.” 

“Nay,” said Justinian, “that’s foolish talk. There’s neither 
marrying nor giving in marriage there. You ought to know so 
much, Dorcas. Husbands and wives will know each other, I 
doubt not, if it’s only for the man’s forgiveness after the many 
crosses and rubs. ’Twould be a pity, wife, if we didn’t know 
each other, golden crown and all. I’d be sorry to think you 
were not about somewhere.” 

Armorel listened without much interest. She wondered vague- 
ly how Dorcas would look in a golden crown, and hoped that 
she might not laugh when she should be permitted to gaze upon 
her thus wonderfully adorned. Then she listened in silence 
while these thinkers followed up their speculations on the next 
world and the decrees of Heaven, with the freedom of their 
kind. A strangely brutal freedom ! It consigns, without a 











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: _ £ 

v 



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“ She asked Peter , icho only shook his head and pointed within.” 


































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■ 

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ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


119 


thought of pity, the majority of mankind to a doom which they 
are too ignorant to realize and too stupid to understand. The 
deceased lady, it was agreed, might, perhaps — though this was 
by no means certain — have fallen under Conviction of Sin at 
some remote period, before any of them knew her. Not since ; 
that was certain. And as for her husband, he was cut off in 
his sins — like all the Roseveans, struck down in his sins, with- 
out a warning. So that if the old lady expected to meet him, 
after their separation of nearly eighty years, on the Shores of 
Everlasting Praise, she would certainly be disappointed, because 
he was otherwise situated and disposed of. Therefore, she might 
just as well go up old and wrinkled. This kind of talk was 
quite familiar to Armorel, and generally meant nothing to her. 
The right of private judgment is claimed and freely exercised 
in Scilly, where that branch of the Church Catholic called Bry- 
anite greatly flourishes. Formerly, she would have passed over 
this talk without heeding. Now, she had begun to think of 
these, as well as of many other things. Roland’s words on re- 
ligious things startled her into thinking. She listened, there- 
fore, w r ondering what view people like Roland Lee would take 
of her great-grandfather’s present condition, and of the poor 
old lady’s prospects of meeting him again. Then her thoughts 
wandered from these nebulous speculations, and she heard no 
more, though the conversation became lurid with the flames of 
Tartarus, and these old religioners gloated over the hopeless 
sufferings of the condemned. A sweet and holy thing, indeed, 
has mankind made of the Gospel of Great Joy ! 

Before they separated, Chessun rose and left the room noise- 
lessly. Armorel had no experience of the situation, but she 
knew that something was going to be done, something connect- 
ed with the impending funeral — something solemn. 

In fact, Chessun returned after ten minutes or a quarter of 
an hour, the others making a pretence of expecting nothing. 
Doctrinal meditation was written on Justinian’s brow ; resigna- 
tion on that of Dorcas. Chessun bore in her hands a tray with 
glasses and a silver tankard filled with something that steamed. 
It was a posset, made with biscuits, new milk and sherry, nut- 
meg and sugar — an emotional drink, strong, sweet, comforting, 
very good for mournful occasions, but of late years, unfortunate- 
ly, gone out of fashion. 


120 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


They all had a glass, the two women moaning over their 
glasses, and the old man shaking his head. Then they went 
to bed. 

They had a posset every night until the funeral. They 
buried the ancient dame on Bryher. A boat carried the coffin 
across the water to the landing-place in New Grinsey Sound, 
behind which stands the little old church with its churchyard. 
Armorel and her household followed in one of the family boats, 
as in a mourning-carriage. All the people of Tresco and Bry- 
her were present at the funeral. And most of them came across 
to Samson after the ceremony to drink a glass of wine and eat 
a slice of cake, the women no longer wailing and the men no 
longer shaking their heads. 

All the Roseveans who have escaped the vengeance of Mr. 
Fletcher’s terrible bag lie in Bryher churchyard. They arc 
mostly widows, poor things ! They sleep alone, because their 
husbands’ bones lie about among the tall weeds in the tranquil 
depths .of ocean. 

And Armorel, looking forward, thought with terror of the 
long silent evenings while the old serving-folk would sit round 
in the firelight, silent, or saying things that might as well have 
been left unsaid. 


CHAPTER XIII. 
armorel’s inheritance. 

“ You are now the mistress, dearie,” said Dorcas. “ It is time 
that you should learn what that means.” 

It was the morning after the funeral — the day of accession — 
the beginning of the new reign. 

“ Why, Dorcas, it makes no difference, does it ? There are 
still the flowers and the house and everything.” 

“Yes — there’s everything.” The old woman nodded her 
head meaningly. “Oh! yes — there is everything. Oh! you 
don’t know — you don’t suspect — nobody knows — what a sur- 
prise is in store for you.” 

“ What surprise, Dorcas ?” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


121 


“You’ve never been into lier room except to see her lying 
dead. It’s your room now. You can go in whenever you like. 
Always the master or the mistress has slept in that room. When 
her father-in-law died she took the room. And she’s slept in it 
ever since. And no one except me and Chessun to clean up 
and sweep and dust has ever been in that room since. And now 
it’s yours.” 

“ Well, Dorcas, it may be mine ; but I shall go on sleeping in 
my own room.” 

“ Then keep it locked — keep it locked up — day and night. 
There’s nobody in Samson to dread — but keep it locked. As 
for sleeping in it, time enough, perhaps, when you come to 
marry. But keep it locked — ” 

“ Why, Dorcas, what is in it ?” 

“ I am seventy-five years old and past,” Dorcas went on. “ I 
was fifteen when I came to the house, and here I’ve been ever 
since. Not one of the grandchildren nor the great-grandchildren 
ever came in here. No one ever knew what is kept here.” 

“ What is it, then ?” Armorel asked again. 

“ She used to come here alone, by daylight, regularly once a 
month. She locked the door when she came in. No one ever 
knew what she was doing, and no one ever asked. One day 
she forgot to lock the door, and by accident I opened it, and 
saw what she was doing.” 

“ What was she doing ?” 

“ She’d opened all the cupboards and boxes, and she’d spread 
out all the things, and was counting, and — no — no — you may 
guess, when you have looked for yourself, what she was doing. 
I shut the door softly, and she never knew that I’d looked in 
upon her. She might have been overseen from the orchard, but 
no one ever went in there except to gather the fruit. To make 
safe, however, I’ve put up a muslin blind now, because Peter 
might take it into his head — boys go everywhere peering and 
prying. Nobody knows what I saw. I never even told Jus- 
tinian. Men blab, you see ; they get together, and they drink. 
Then they blab. You can never trust a man with a secret. 
How long would it be before Peter would let it out if he knew ? 
Once over at Hugh Town drinking at a bar, and all the world 
would know in half an hour. No, no ; the secret was hers ; it 
was mine as well — but that was an accident — she never knew 
6 


122 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


that ; now it will be yours and mine. And we will tell nobody 
— nobody at all.” 

“Where shall I find this wonderful secret, Dorcas?” 

“ Wherever you look, dearie. Oh ! the room is full of 
things. There can’t be such another room in all the world. 
It’s crammed with things. Look everywhere. If they knew, 
all the young lords and princes would be at your feet, Armorel, 
because you are so rich. Best keep it secret, though, and get 
richer.” 

“ I so rich ? Dorcas, you are joking.” 

“ No — you shall look and find out. Not that you will under- 
stand at first — because, how should you know the value of 
things? Here’s her bunch of keys. She always carried them 
in her pocket, and at night she kept them under her pillows, 
and there I found them, sure enough, when she was cold and 
dead. Take them, child. I never told her secret — no — not 
even to my own husband. Take the keys, child. They are 
yours — your own. You can open everything ; you can look at 
everything; you can do what you like with everything. It’s 
your inheritance. But tell no one,” she repeated, earnestly. 
“ Oh ! my dear, let it remain a secret. Don’t let any one see 
you when you come in here. Lock the door, as she did. And 
keep it locked.” 

The old woman led Armorel by the hand to the door of the 
room where there was to be found the great surprise. She 
opened it, placed a bunch of keys in her hand, pushed her in, 
and closed it behind her, whispering, “ Lock it, and keep it 
locked.” 

The girl turned the key obediently, wondering what would 
happen next. 

The room was on the ground floor, looking out upon the 
orchard, with a northern aspect, so that the sun could only 
shine in for a small portion of the year, during the summer 
months. The apple-trees were now in blossom, the white and 
pink flowers, bright in the sunshine, contrasting with the gray 
lichen which wrapped every branch and hung down like rib- 
bons. The room was the oldest part of the house, the only re- 
maining portion of an earlier house ; it was low and small ; the 
fireplace had never been modernized : it stood wide open, with 
its dogs and its broad chimney ; the window was of three nar- 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


123 


row lights, one of which could he opened ; all were still pro- 
vided with the old diamond panes in their leaden setting. Ar- 
morel observed the muslin blind put up by Dorcas to keep out 
prying eyes. In dull and cloudy days the room would be gloomy. 
As it was, even with the bright sunshine out of doors, the air 
seemed cold and oppressive — perhaps from the fresh association 
of death. Armorel shivered as she looked about her. 

The greater part of the room was taken up by a large bed. 
In the old lady’s time it had curtains and a head, and things at 
the four corners like the plumes of a hearse, but in faded crim- 
son. Then it looked splendid. Now, the bed had been stripped ; 
curtains and plumes and all were goije, and only the skeleton 
bed left, with its four great solid posts and its upper beams, and 
its feather bed lying exposed, with the bare pillow-cases upon 
the mattress. But the bedstead was magnificent without its 
trappings, because it was made of mahogany black with age ; 
they no longer make such bedsteads. There was also a table — 
an old black table — with massive legs, but there was nothing 
on it. 

Between door and wall there was a row of pegs, with a chair 
beneath them. Now, by some freak of chance, when Dorcas 
and Chessun hung up the ancient dame’s things for the last 
time — her great bonnet, and the cap of many ribbons within it, 
and her silk dress — they arranged them so as to present a most 
extraordinary presentment of the venerable lady herself — much 
elongated and without any face — she seemed to be sitting in 
the chair below the pegs, dressed as usual, and nodding her great 
bonnet, but pulled out to eight or ten feet in length. Armorel 
caught the ghostly similitude and started, trembling. It seemed 
as if in a moment the wrinkled old face, with the hawk-like nose 
and the keen eyes, would come back to the bonnet and the cap. 
She was so much startled that she turned the bonnet round. 
And then the figure seemed watching with the shoulders. This 
was uncanny, but it was not so terrible as the faceless form. 

Beside the fireplace was a cupboard, one of those huge cup- 
boards which one only finds in the old houses ; Armorel tried 
the door, but it was locked. Against the wall stood a chest of 
drawers, brass-bound, massive. She tried the handles, but every 
lock was fast. Under the window stood an old sea-chest. It 
was a very big sea-chest. One would judge, from its rich carv- 


124 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


ings and its ornamental iron-work, that it was probably the sea- 
chest of an admiral at least — perhaps that of Admiral Fernando 
Mureno, Armorel’s ancestor, if such was his rank in the navy of 
his Catholic majesty. The sight of this sea-chest caused the 
girl to shiver with the fear of expectation. Nobody contem- 
plates the absolutely unknown without a certain fear. It con- 
tained, she was certain, the things that Dorcas had seen, of 
which she would not speak. The chest seemed to drag her ; it 
cried, “ Open me. Look inside me — sec what I have got to 
show you.” 

Then she remembered, as one in a dream, hearing people talk» 
Words long forgotten came back to her. ’Twas in Hugh Town, 
whither she went across to school when she was as yet a little 
girl. “What have the Roseveans” — thus and thus said the 
voice — “ done with all their money ? They’ve never spent any- 
thing ; they’ve gone on saving and saving. Some day we shall 
find out what became of it.” AVas she going to find out what 
had become of it ? 

The old lady, in her most lucid moments, had never dropped 
the least hint of any inheritance, except that disagreeable neces- 
sity of getting drowned on account of the unfortunate Robert 
Fletcher. And that was not an inheritance to gladden the heart. 
Yet there was an inheritance. It was here, in this room. And 
she was locked in alone, in order that she, herself unseen by 
any, might discover what it was. 

Baron Bluebeard’s last wife — she who afterwards, as a beauti- 
ful, rich, and lively young widow, set so many hearts aflame — 
was not more curious than Armorel. Nor was she, in the course 
of her investigations, more afraid than Armorel. The girl looked 
nervously about the room so ghostly and so full of shadow. All 
old rooms have their ghosts, but some of them have so many 
that one is not afraid of them. There is a sense of companion- 
ship in a crowd of ghosts. This room had only one — that of 
the woman who had grown old in it — who had spent nearly 
eighty years in it. All the old ghosts had grown tired of this 
monotonous room, gone away, and left the place to her. Ar- 
morel not only “believed in ghosts” — many of us accord to 
these shadows a shadowy, theoretical belief — she actually knew 
that ghosts do sometimes appear. Dorcas had seen many — 
Chessun herself, while not going actually that length, threw out 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


125 


hints. She herself had often, too, gone to look for them. Now 
she glanced nervously where the “ things ” were hanging, expect- 
ing to see the ancestral figure reappear, shoulders move, the 
bonnet and cap turn round, the old, old face within them, ready 
to warn, to admonish, and to guide. If this had happened, it 
would have seemed to Armorel nothing but what was natural 
and in the regular course of things looked for. But, outside, 
the sun shone on the white apple-blossoms. No one is very 
much afraid of ghosts in the sunshine. 

She encouraged herself with this reflection, and began with 
unlocking the chest of drawers. The lower drawers, when they 
were opened, contained nothing but the “ things ” of her great- 
great-grandmother. Among them was a box roughly made — a 
boy’s box made with a jack-knife ; it contained a gold watch 
with a French name upon it — a very old watch, with a represen- 
tation of the Annunciation in low relief on the gold face. There 
were also in the box two or three gold chains and sundry rings 
and trinkets. Armorel took them out and laid them on the 
table. They were, she said to herself, part of her inheritance. 
Was this the great surprise spoken of by Dorcas? She tried 
the two upper drawers. They were locked, but she easily found 
the right key, and opened them. She found that they were 
filled with lace ; they were crammed with lace. There were 
packets of lace tied up tight, rolls of lace, cardboards with lace 
wound round and round — an immense quantity of lace was lying 
in these drawers. As for its value, Armorel knew nothing. Nor 
did she even ask herself what the value might be. She only 
unrolled one or two packets, and wondered vaguely what in the 
world she should do with so much lace. And she wished it was 
not so yellow. Yet the packets she unrolled contained Valen- 
ciennes — some of it half a yard wide, precious almost beyond 
price. Armorel knew, however, very well how it had got there, 
and what it meant. The descendant of so many brave runners 
was not ignorant that lace, velvet, silk and satin, brandy and 
claret, all came from the French coast with which her gallant 
forefathers were so familiar before the Preventive Service inter- 
fered. This, then, was left from the smuggling times. They 
had not sold all. They had kept enough, in fact, to stock half 
a dozen West End shops, to adorn the trousseaux of fifty 
princesses. And here the stuff had lain undisturbed since 


126 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


— well, perhaps, since the unfortunate visit of Mr. Robert 
Fletcher. 

“ My inheritance, so far,” said Armorel, “ is a pile of yellow 
lace and a gold watch and chain and some trinkets. Is this the 
great surprise ?” But she looked at the sea-chest. Something 
more must he there. 

Next she turned to the cupboard. It was locked and double 
locked. But she found the key. The cupboard was one of 
those great receptacles common in the oldest houses, almost 
rooms in themselves, hut dark rooms, where mediaeval house- 
keepers kept their stores. In those days, housekeeping on a re- 
spectable scale meant the continual maintenance of immense 
stores. All the things which now we get from shops as we 
want them were then laid in store long before they were wanted. 
Outside the country town there were no shops ; and, even in 
London itself, people did not run to the shop every day. The 
men had great quantities of shirts — three clean shirts a day was 
the allowance of a solid City man under good Queen Anne — a 
City man who respected himself ; the women had a correspond- 
ing quantity of flowered petticoats. Wine was by no means the 
only thing laid down for future years. All these accumulations 
helped to give solidity to the appearance of life. When a 
woman thought of her cupboards filled with fine linen, and a 
man of his cellars filled with wine, the uncertainty and brevity 
of life alleged by the preacher seemed not to concern them. It 
would be absurd to lay down a great bin of good port if one 
were not going to live long enough to drink it. The fashion, 
therefore, has its advantages. 

Armorel threw open the door and looked in. The place was 
so dark that she was obliged to light a candle in order to ex- 
amine the shelves running round the sides of the cupboard. 
There was a strange smell in the place, which, perhaps, had not 
been opened for a long time. Bales of some kind lay upon the 
upper shelves. Armorel took down two and opened them. 
They contained silk — strong, rich silk. She rolled them up 
and put them back. On a lower shelf was a most singular col- 
lection. In the front row were one — two — no fewer than six 
punch-bowls, all of silver except one, and that was of silver-gilt. 
This must be the great surprise. Armorel took them all out 
and placed them on the table. For the most part they showed 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


127 


signs of having been used with freedom — one has heard of an 
empty punch-bowl being kicked about the place as a conclusion 
to the feast. But six punch-bowls ! “ They came,” said Ar- 

morel, “ from the wrecks.” Behind the punch-bowls were silver 
candlesticks, silver snuffers, silver cups, silver tankards — some 
with coats-of-arms, some with names engraven. There was also 
a great silver ship, one of those galleons in silver which former- 
ly adorned royal banquets. All these Armorel took out and 
arranged upon the table. Among them was a tall hour-glass 
mounted in silver. Armorel set the sand running again, after 
many years. On the floor there were packets and bundles tied 
up and rolled together. Armorel opened one of them, and, 
finding that it contained a packet of gold lace and a pair of 
gold epaulettes, she left them undisturbed. And standing 
against the wall, stacked behind the bundles of gold lace, were 
swords — dozens of swords. What could she do with swords ? 
Well, then, now at last, she had found the great surprise. But 
still the sea-chest seemed to drag her and to call to her : “ Open 
me ! Open me ! See what I have got for you !” 

“ So far, then,” she said, “ I have inherited a pile of lace ; a 
gold watch, rings, and chains ; six punch-bowls, twenty-four silver 
candlesticks, twelve silver cups, four great tankards, a silver ship, 
I know not how many old swords, and a bundle of gold lace. 
I wonder if these things make a person rich 2” 

If so, great wealth does not satisfy the soul. This was cer- 
tain, because Armorel really felt no richer than before. Yet the 
array of punch-bowls was truly imposing, and the silver candle- 
sticks, the snuffers, the tankards, the cups, and the ship, though 
they sadly wanted the brush and the chamois leather, with a 
pinch of “whitenin’,” were worthy of a college plate-room. 
One might surely feel a little elation at the thought of owning all 
this silver, even if one did not understand its intrinsic value. But, 
like the effect of champagne, such elation would quickly wear off. 

Next, Armorel remembered the secret cupboard at the head 
of the bed. Her own bed had its secret recess at the head — 
every respectable bedstead used formerly to have them. Where 
else could money be hidden away safely ? To be sure, every, 
body knew this hiding-place, but everybody pretended not to 
know. It was an open secret, like the concealed drawer in a 
school-boy’s desk. Our forefathers were full of such secrets 


128 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


that everybody knew. Tlie stocking in the teapot ; the recep- 
tacle under the hearthstone ; the hidden compartment in the 
cabinet ; the secret room ; the secret staircase ; the recess in 
the head of the bed — these were all secrets that everybody 
knew and everybody respected. I think that even the burglar 
respected these conventions. Armorel knew how to open the 
panel — she found the spring and it flew open, rustily, as if it 
had not been opened for a great many years. Behind the panel 
was a recess eighteen inches long and about nine inches deep. 
And here stood a Black Jack — nothing less than a Black Jack; 
a quart Jack, not a leather bottell, but a tankard made of tin 
and painted with hunting scenes something like an Etruscan 
vase, or perhaps more like a Brown George. Why should any 
one want to hide away a Black Jack ? This quart pot, however, 
held something better than stingo — even stronger; it was half 
filled with foreign money. Here were moidores, doubloons, 
ducats, pieces-of-eight, Louis d’ors, Spanish pillar dollars, se- 
quins, gold coins from India — nothing at all in the pot less than 
a hundred years old. Armorel took out a handful and looked 
at them. Well, gold coins do look like money. She began to 
feel really rich. She had a quart tankard half-full of gold coins. 
She added the Black Jack to the other treasures on the table. 
All this foreign money must have come out of the wrecks. 
And, since it was all so old, out of wrecks that had happened 
before the memory even of the ancient lady. This, then, was 
perhaps the great surprise. 

But there remained the sea-chest under the window, and 
again, when Armorel looked upon it, the chest continued to call 
to her, “ Open me ! Open me ! See what I have for you !” 

Armorel found the key which unlocked it, and threw open the 
lid. Within, there was the deep tray which belongs to every 
sea-chest. This was filled with a quantity of uninteresting 
brown canvas bags. She wanted to see what was below, and 
tried to lift the tray, but it was too heavy. Then, still regard- 
ing the bags as of no account, she took one out. It was heavy, 
and when she lifted it there was a clink as of coin. It was 
tied tightly at the mouth with a piece of string. She opened it. 
Within there were gold coins. She took out a handful ; they 
were all sovereigns, some of them worn, some quite new and 
fresh from the mint. She poured out the whole contents of the 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


129 


bag on the table. Why, it was actually full of golden sov- 
ereigns. Nothing else in the bag. All golden sovereigns ! 
And there were five hundred of them. She counted them. 
Five hundred pounds ! She had never, it is true, thought much 
about money — but — five hundred pounds ! It seemed an amaz- 
ing sum. Five hundred pounds ! And all in a single bag. And 
such a little bag as this. She put back the money and tied up 
the bag. 

Then she took out another bag. This was as big as the first, 
and heavier. It was full of guineas — Armorel counted them. 
There were also five hundred of them. Some of them were so 
old that they bore the impression of the elephant, and there- 
fore belonged to the seventeenth century. But most of them 
belonged to the eighteenth century, and bore the heads of the 
three first Georges. Five hundred guineas — and never before 
had Armorel seen a guinea! Well, she thought, that made a 
thousand pounds. She took up another bag and opened it. 
That, too, weighed as much, and was full of gold. And another, 
and yet another. They were all full of gold. And now she 
knew what Dorcas meant — this — nothing but this — was the 
great surprise ! Not the punch-bowls, or the lace, or the bales 
of silk, but these bags full of gold constituted her wealth. She 
understood money, you see : lace and silk were beyond her. 
This was her inheritance ! 

Consider : the Roseveans, from father to son, had been from 
time immemorial wreckers, smugglers, and pilots. They were 
also farmers. On their little farm they grew nearly enough to 
support their simple lives. They had pigs and poultry ; they 
had milch-cows ; they had a few sheep ; they kept geese, pig- 
eons, ducks ; they made their own beer and their own cordials 
and strong waters ; they made their own linen ; they were unto 
themselves millers, tinkers, carpenters, cabinet-makers, builders, 
and thatchers. They grew their own salads and vegetables, and 
if they wanted any fruit they grew that as well. Oats and bar- 
ley they grew, clover and hay. I believe that on Samson wheat 
has never been grown — indeed, there are only eighty acres in 
all. There was left, therefore, little to buy. Coals, wood for 
fuel and for carpentering, things in iron, crockery, tools, cloth 
clothes, flannel, flour, and sometimes a little beef — what else did 
they want ? As for fish, they had only to catch as much as they 
6 * 


130 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


wanted. Tea, coffee, sugar, and so forth came in with later civ- 
ilization, when small ales, possets, and hypsy died out. 

In order to provide these small deficiencies they were pilots, 
to begin with. This trade brought in a steady income. They 
also sent out boats filled with fresh vegetables, to meet the 
homeward-bound East-Indiamen. And they were also, like the 
rest of the artless islanders, wreckers and smugglers. In the 
former capacity they occasionally acquired an extraordinary quan- 
tity of odd and valuable things. In the latter profession they 
made at times, and until the Peace and the Preventive Service 
put an end to the business, a really fine income. 

Then, on Samson, they continued to live after the patriarchal 
fashion and in the old simplicity. Each Captain Rosevean in 
turn was the chieftain or sheik. To him his family brought all 
that they earned or found. The sea-chest took it all. For three 
hundred years, at least, this sea-chest received everything and 
gave up nothing. Nobody ever took anything out of it ; nobody 
looked into it; nobody knew, until Ursula counted the money 
and made bags for it, what there was in the chest. Nobody ever 
asked if they were rich or how rich they were. 

There was no bank on Samson ; there is not even now a bank 
in the Scilly archipelago at all; nobody understood any other 
way of saving money than the good old fashion of putting it by in 
a bag. On Samson there never were thieves, even when as many 
as fifty people lived on the island. Therefore the Captain Rose- 
vean of the time, though he knew not how much was saved, nor 
did he ever inquire, laid the last additions to the pile in the tray 
of the old sea-chest with the rest, and, having locked it up, 
dropped the key in his pocket, and went about his business in 
perfect confidence, never thinking either that it might be stolen, 
or that he might count up his hoard, proceed to enjoy it, and 
alter his simple way of life. Every Captain Rosevean in suc- 
cession added to that hoard every year; not one among them 
all thought of spending it or taking anything from it. He added 
to it. Nobody ever counted it until the reign of Ursula. It was 
she who made the little brown bags of canvas ; she, usurping 
the place of Family Chief or Sheik, took from her sons and 
grandsons all the money that they made. They gave it over to 
her keeping — she was the Family Bank. And, like her prede- 
cessors in that room, she told no one of the hoard. 


AUMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


131 


Most of the bags contained guineas of George I., George II., and 
George III., down to the year 1816 , when the mint left off coining 
guineas. A few contained sovereigns of later date ; but the family 
savings since that year had been small and uncertain. The really 
fat time — the prosperous time — when the money poured in, was 
during the long war which lasted for nearly five-and-twenty years. 

There were actually forty of these bags. Armorel laid them 
out upon the table and counted them. Forty ! And each bag, 
to all appearance, for she only counted two, contained five hun- 
dred guineas or pounds. Forty times five hundred — that makes 
twenty thousand pounds, if all were sovereigns ! There are, I 
am told, a few young ladies in England who have as much as 
twenty thousand pounds for their dot. There are also a great 
many young ladies in France, and an amazing multitude, whom 
no man may number, in the United States of America, who have 
as much. But I am quite sure that not one of these heiresses, 
except Armorel herself, has ever actually gazed upon her fortune 
in a concrete form — tangible — to be counted — to be weighed — 
to be admired. It is a pity that they cannot do this, if only be- 
cause they would then see for themselves what a very small pile 
of gold a fortune of twenty thousand pounds actually makes. 
This would make them humble. Armorel stood looking at the 
table thus laden, with bewildered eyes. 

“ I have got,” she murmured, “ twenty thousand sovereigns 
and guineas at least ; I have got a painted pot full of old money. 
I have got six punch-bowls, a great silver ship, a large number 
of silver candlesticks and cups; I have got a silver -mounted 
hour-glass ” — its sand was now nearly run — “ I have got a great 
quantity of lace and silk. I suppose all this does make riches. 
Whatever shall I do with it? Shall I give it to the poor? or 
shall I put it back into the box and leave it there ? But perhaps 
there is something else in the box.” 

The chest, in fact, continued to call aloud to be examined. 
Even while Armorel looked at her glittering treasures spread 
out upon the table she felt herself drawn towards the chest. 
There was more in it. There was another surprise waiting for 
her — even a greater surprise, perhaps, than that of the bags of 
gold. “ Search me I” cried the chest. “ Search me ! Look into 
the innermost recesses of me ; explore my contents to the very 
bottom ; let nothing escape your eyes.” 


132 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


Armorel knelt down before the chest and took out the tray. 
It was empty now, and she could lift it easily. 

Beneath the tray there was a most miscellaneous collection of 
things. 

They lay in layers, separated and divided — Ursula’s hand was 
here — by silk handkerchiefs of the good old kind — the bandanna, 
now gone out of fashion. 

First Armorel took out and laid on the floor a layer of silver 
spoons, silver ladles, even silver dishes, all of antique appearance 
and for the most part stamped with a crest or a coat-of-arms ; 
for in the old days if a man were Armiger he loved to place his 
shield on everything ; to look at it and glory in it ; to let others 
see it and envy it. 

Then she found a layer of watches. There were gold watches 
and silver watches, the latter of all kinds, down to the veritable 
turnip. The glasses were broken of nearly all, and, if one had 
examined, the works would have been found rusted with the sea- 
water which had got in. What were they worth now ? Perhaps 
the value of the cases and of the jewels with which the works 
were set, and more with one or two, where miniatures adorned 
the back and jewels were set in the face. Armorel turned with 
impatience from the watches to the gold chains, which lay beside 
them. There were yards of gold chain ; gold chains of all kinds, 
from the heavy English make to the dainty interlaced Venetian 
and thread-like Trichinopoly ; there were silver chains also — 
massive silver chains, made for some extinct office-bearer, per- 
haps bo’s’n on the admiral’s ship of the Great Armada. Ar- 
morel drew up some of the chains and played with them, tying 
them round her wrists and letting them slip through her fingers 
— the pretty, delicate things, which spoke of wealth almost as 
loudly as the bags of guineas. 

She laid them aside, and took up a silk handkerchief contain- 
ing a small collection of miniatures. They were almost all por- 
traits of women, young and pretty women — ladies on land whose 
faces warmed the hearts and fired the memories of men at sea. 
The miniatures had hung round the necks of some and had lain 
in the sea-chests of others, whose bones had long since melted 
to nothing in the salt sea-depths, while those of their mistresses 
had turned to dust beneath the aisle of some village church, their 
memory long since forgotten, and their very name trampled out 
by the feet of the rustics. 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


133 


Armorel laid aside these pictures — they were very pretty, hut 
she would look at them again another time. 

The next parcel was a much larger one. It consisted of snuff- 
boxes. There were dozens of snuff-boxes ; one or two of gold ; 
one or two silver-gilt; some silver. In the lids of some were 
pictures, some most beautifully and delicately executed ; some 
of subjects which Armorel did not understand — and why, she 
thought, should painters draw people without proper clothes? 
Venus and the Graces and the Nymphs in whom our eighteenth- 
century ancestors took such huge delight were to this young 
person merely people. The snuff-boxes were very well in their 
way, but Armorel had no inclination to look at them again. 

Then she found in a handkerchief, the four corners of which 
were loosely tied together, a great quantity of rings. There 
were rings of every kind — the official ring or the ring of office, 
the signet ring, the ring with the shield, the ring with the name 
of a ship, the ring with the name of a regiment, mourning rings, 
wedding rings, betrothal rings, rings with posies, cramp rings 
with the names of the Magi on them — but their power was gone 
— girnmal rings, rings episcopal, rings barbaric, mediaeval, and 
modern, rings set with every kind of precious stone — there were 
hundreds of rings. All drowned sailors used to have rings on 
their fingers. 

Armorel began to get tired of all these treasures. Beneath 
them, however, at the bottom of the box, lay piled together a 
mass of curios. They were stowed away for the most part in 
small boxes, of foreign make and appearance, ivory boxes, carved 
wood boxes. They consisted of all kinds of things, such as gold 
and silver buckles, brooches, painted fans, jewel-hilted daggers, 
crystal tubes of attar of roses, and knives of curious construc- 
tion. The girl sighed ; she would look over them at another 
time. They would, perhaps, add something to the inheritance, 
but for the moment she was satisfied. She had seen enough. 
She was putting back a dagger whose jewelled handle flashed 
in the unaccustomed light, when she saw, lying half hidden 
among this pile of curious things, the corner of a chagreen case. 
This attracted her curiosity, and she took it out. The chagreen 
had been green in color, but was now very much discolored. It 
had been fastened by a silver clasp, but this was broken ; a small 
leather strap was attached to two corners. Armorel expected to 


134 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


find another bag of money. But this did not contain gold. It 
was lighter than the canvas bags. As she took it into her hands 
she remembered the bag of Robert Fletcher. Yes. The leathern 
strap of this case had been cut through. She held in her hands 
— she was certain — the abominable thing that had brought so 
much trouble on the family. Again the room felt ghostly ; she 
heard voices whispering ; the voices of all those who had been 
drowned ; the voices of the women who had mourned for them ; 
the voice of the old lady who was herself a witness of the crime. 
They all whispered together in her ears : “ Armorel, you must 
find him. You must give it back to him.” 

What was in it ? The clasp acted no longer. Armorel lifted 
the overlapping leather and looked within. There was a thick 
roll of silk. She took this out. Wrapped up in the silk, laid 
in folds, side by side, were a quantity of stones — common-looking 
stones, such as one may pick up, she thought, on the beach of 
Porth Bay. There were a couple of hundred or more, mostly 
small stones, only one . or two of them bigger than the top of 
Armorel’s little finger. 

“ Only stones !” she cried. “ All this trouble about a bag full 
of red stones !” 

Among the stones lay a small folded paper. Armorel opened 
it. The paper was discolored by age or by water, and most of 
the writing was effaced. But she could read some of it. 

“ . . . from the King of Burmah himself. This ruby I esti- 
mate to be worth . . . 000/. at the very least. The other . . . 
Mines. The second largest stone weighs . . . about 2000/. 
The smaller . . . rt Fletcher.” 

It was a note on the contents of the parcel, written by the 
owner. 

The stones, therefore, were rubies — uncut rubies. Armorel 
knew little about precious stones and jewels, but she had heard 
and read of them. The price of a virtuous woman, she knew, 
was far above rubies. And Solomon’s fairest among women 
was made comely with rows of jewels. Queen Sheba, more- 
over, brought precious stones among her presents to the Wise 
King. The girl wondered why such common-looking objects 
as these should be precious. But she was humbly ignorant, 
and put that wonder by. 

This, then, was nothing else than Robert Fletcher’s fortune. 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


135 


lie liad this round his neck, and he was bringing it home to 
enjoy. And it was taken from him by her ancestor. A wicked 
thing indeed ! . A foul and wicked thing ! And the poor man 
had been sent empty away to begin his life all over again. She 
shivered as she looked at them. All for the sake of these dull, 
red bits of stone ! How can man so easily fall into temptation ? 
In the empty room, so quiet, so ghostly, she heard again the 
whispers, “Armorel, find him — find the man — and give him 
back his jewels.” 

She replied aloud, not daring to look round her lest she should 
see the pale and eager faces of those who had suffered death by 
drowning in consequence of this sin, “ Yes — yes, I will find him ! 
I will find him !” 

She pushed the chagreen case back into its corner, and cov- 
ered it up. “ I will find him,” she repeated. Then she rose to 
her feet and looked about the room. Heavens ! What a sight ! 
The bags of gold, two of them open, their contents lying piled 
upon the table — the chains of gold on the floor — the handful of 
old gold coins lying on the table beside the Black Jack, the snuff- 
boxes, the miniatures, the punch-bowls, the rings, the silver cups 
— the low room, dark and quiet, filled with ghosts and voices, 
the recent occupant wagging her shoulders and shaking the back 
of her bonnet at her from the opposite wall, and, through the 
open window, the sight of the sunlight on the apple-blossoms 
mocking the gold and silver in this gloomy cave. She compre- 
hended, as yet, little of the extent of her good-fortune. Lace 
and silk, rings and miniatures, snuff-boxes — all these things had 
no value to her — of buying and selling she had no kind of ex- 
perience. All she understood was that she was the possessor of 
a vast quantity of things for which she could find no possible 
use ; one jewelled dagger, for instance, might be used for a din- 
ner-knife or for a paper-knife ; but what could she do with a 
dozen ? In addition to this museum of pretty and useless things 
she had forty bags with five hundred guineas, or pounds, in 
each — twenty-one thousand pounds, say, in cash. This museum 
was perfectly unique; no family in Great Britain had such a 
collection. It had been growing for more than three hundred 
years ; it was begun in the time of the Tudor kings, at least ; 
perhaps even earlier. Wrecks there were, and Roseveans, on 


13G 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


Samson, before tbe seventh Henry. I doubt if any other family, 
even the oldest and the noblest, has been collecting so long. 
Certainly no other family, even in this archipelago of wrecks, 
can have had such opportunities of collecting with such diffi- 
culties in dissipating. For more than three hundred years ! 
And Armorel was sole heiress ! 

She understood that she had inherited something more than 
twenty thousand pounds ; how much more she knew not. Now, 
unless one knows something of the capacities of one single pound, 
one cannot arrive at the possibilities of twenty thousand pounds. 
Armorel knew as much as this. Tea at Hugh Town costs two 
shillings a pound — perhaps two-and-four ; sugar threepence a 
pound ; nun’s cloth so much a yard ; serge and flannel so much ; 
coals, so much a ton ; wood for fuel, so much. This was nearly 
the extent of her knowledge ; and it must be confessed that it 
goes very little way towards a right comprehension of twenty 
thousand pounds. 

Once, again, she had heard Justinian talking of the flower- 
farm. “ It has made,” he said, “ four hundred pounds this 
year, clear.” To which Dorcas replied, “ And the housekeeping 
doesn’t come to half that, nor near it.” Whence, by the new 
light of this great surprise, she concluded, firsfr, that the other 
two hundred, thus made, must have been added to those money- 
bags, and, next, that two hundred pounds a year would be a lib- 
eral allowance for her whole yearly expenditure. Then she made 
a little calculation. Two hundred pounds a year — two hundred 
into twenty thousand — twenty thousand — one and four noughts 
— she put five bags in a row for the number — subtract two — she 
did so — there remained two — divide by two — she did so — one 
hundred years was the result of that sum. Her twenty thou- 
sand pounds would, therefore, last her exactly one hundred 
years. At the expiration of the century all would be gone. 
For the first time in her life Armorel comprehended the fleeting 
nature of riches. And, naturally, the discovery, though she shiv- 
ered at the thought of losing all, made her feel a little proud. 
A strange result of wealth, to advance the inheritor one more 
step in the knowledge of possible misery ! She was like unto 
the curious youth who opens a book of medicine only to learn 
of new diseases and terrible sufferings and alarming symptoms, 
and to imagine these in his own body of corruption. In a hun- 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


137 


dred years there would be no more. She would then he reduced 
to sell the lace and other things for what they would then be 
worth. There would still, however, remain the flower-farm. 
She would, after all, be no worse off than before the great 
surprise. And then there sprang up in her heart the blos- 
som of another thought, to be developed, later on, into a lovely 
flower. 

She had risen from her knees now, and was standing beside 
the table, vaguely gazing upon her inheritance. It was all before 
her. So the ancient lady had stood many and many a time 
counting the money ; looking to see if all was safe ; content to 
count it and to know that it was there. The old lady was gone, 
but from the opposite wall her shoulders and the back of her 
bonnet were looking on. 

Well, Armorel might go on doing exactly the same. She 
might live as her forefathers had lived ; there was the flower- 
farm to provide all their necessities; if it brought in four hun- 
dred pounds a year she could add two hundred to the heap — in 
every two years and a half another bag of five hundred sover- 
eigns. All her people had done this — why not she ? It seemed 
expected of her ; a plain duty laid upon her shoulders. If she 
were to live on for eighty years longer — which would bring her 
to her great-great-grandmother’s age — she would save eighty 
times two hundred — sixteen thousand pounds. The inheritance 
would then be w’orth thirty-six thousand pounds — a prodigious 
sum of money indeed. And, besides, the Black Jack, with its 
foreign gold, and the rings and lace and things ! 

A strange room it was this morning. Yv^hat voice was it that 
whispered solemnly in her ear, “ Lay not up for yourselves treas- 
ures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where 
thieves break through and steal”? 

Never before had this injunction possessed any other signifi- 
cance to her than belongs to one manifestly addressed to other 
people. The Bible is full of warnings addressed to other peo- 
ple. Armorel was like the royal duke who used to murmur 
during the weekly utterance of the Commandments, “ Never 
did that. Never did that.” Now, this precept was clearly and 
from the very first intended to meet her own case. Oh ! To 
live for nothing else than to add more bags to that tray in the 
great sea-chest ! 


138 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


Roland liad prophesied that there would be a change. It had 
come already in part, and more was coming. 

What next ? As yet the girl did not understand that she was 
mistress of her own fate. Hitherto things had been done for 
her. She was now about to act for herself. But how? If 
Roland were only here ! But he had only written once, and he 
had never kept his promise to write back again to Samson. If 
he were here he could advise. 

She looked around, and saw the heaps of things that were all 
hers, and she laughed. The girl whom Roland thought to be 
only an ignorant and poor little country girl, a flower-farmer’s 
girl of Samson Island, living alone with her old grandmother and 
the serving-folk, was ignorant still, no doubt. But she was not 
poor ; she was rich — she could have all that can be bought with 
money — she was rich. What would Roland say and think? 
And she laughed aloud. 

She was rich — the last girl in the world to hope or expect or 
desire riches. Thus Fate mocks us, giving to one, who wants it 
not, wealth ; and to another, who knows not how to use it, youth ; 
and to a third, insensible of its power, beauty. The young lady 
of society, she whom the good old hymns used to call the world- 
ling — fond and pretty title ! there are no worldlings now — would 
have no difficulty in knowing how to use this wonderful wind- 
fall. She, indeed, is always longing, perhaps praying, for money ; 
she is always thinking how delightful it would be to be rich, and 
how there is nothing in the whole world more desirable than 
much fine gold. But to Lady Worldling, poor thing ! such a 
windfall never happens. Again, there are all the distressed gen- 
tlewomen, the unappreciated artists, the authors whose books 
won’t sell, the lawyers who have no clients, the wives whose 
name is Quiverful, the tradesman who ’scapes the Bankruptcy 
Court year after year by the skin of his teeth ; and the poor, 
dear young man who pines away because he cannot join the 
rabble rout of Comus — why, why does not such a windfall ever 
come to any of these ? It never does ; yet they spend all their 
spare time — all the time when they ought to be planning and 
devising ways and means of advancement — in dreaming of the 
golden days they would enjoy if only such a windfall fell to 
them. One such man I knew ; he dreamed of wealth all his 
life ; he tried to become rich by taking every year a share in a 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


139 


foreign lottery. Of course, he never won a prize. While he 
was yet young, and even far down the shady or outer slope of 
middle age, he continually built castles in the air, fashioning 
pleasant ways for himself when he should get that prize. When 
he grew old he dreamed of the will he would make and of the 
envy with which other old men, when he was gone, should re- 
gard the memory of one who had cut up so well. So he died 
poor ; but I think he had always, through his dreaming, been 
as happy as if he had been rich. 

Armorel told herself, standing in the midst of this great treas- 
ure, that she was rich. Roland had once told her, she remem- 
bered, that an artist ought to have money in order to be free ; 
only in freedom, he said, could a man make the best of himself. 
What was good for an artist might be good for her. At the 
same time — it is not for nothing that a girl reads and ponders 
over the Gospels — there were terrible words of warning — there 
were instances. She shuddered, overwhelmed with the prospects 
of new dangers. 

She knew everything; the room had yielded all its secrets; 
there were no more cupboards, boxes, or drawers. The sight of 
the treasures already began to pall upon her. She applied her- 
self to putting everything back. First the cliagreen case. This 
she laid carefully in its corner among the daggers and pistols, 
remembering that she had promised to find the owner. How 
should she do that if she remained on Samson ? Then she put 
back the snuff-boxes, the miniatures, and the watches in their 
silk handkerchiefs ; then the box of rings and the silver spoons 
and dishes. Then she put the tray in its place, and laid the 
bags in the tray, and locked the old sea-chest. This done, she 
bore back to the shelves in the cupboard the punch-bowls, can- 
dlesticks, tankards, and the big silver ship; she locked and 
double-locked the cupboard-door; she crammed the lace into 
the drawers, and put back the box of trinkets. 

Then she dropped the keys in her pocket. Oh ! what a lump 
to carry about all day long ! But the weight of the keys in 
her pocket was nothing to the weight that was laid upon her 
shoulders by her great possessions. This, however, she hardly 
felt at first. 

Everything was her own. 

When the new king comes to the throne he makes a great 


140 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


clearance of all tlie personal belongings of the old king. He 
gives away his cloaks and his uniforms, and all the things be- 
longing to the daily life of his predecessor. That is always 
done. Therefore, Queen Armorel — Yivat Regina! — at this 
point gathered together all her predecessor’s belongings. She 
turned them out of the drawers and laid them on the floor — 
with the great bonnet and the wonderful cap of ribbons. And 
then she opened the door. She would give these things to 
Dorcas. Her great-great-grandmother should have no more au- 
thority there. Even her clothes must go. If her ghost should 
remain — it should be without the bonnet and the cap. 

She called Dorcas, who came, curious to know how her young 
mistress took the great surprise. Armorel had taken it, appar- 
ently, as a matter of course. So the new king stands upon the 
highest step of the throne, calm and collected, as if he had been 
prepared for this event, and was expecting it day after day. 

“You know all now, dearie?” she whispered, shutting the 
door carefully. “Did you find everything?” 

“ Yes — I believe I found everything.” 

“ The silver in the cupboard ; the lace ; the bags of gold ?” 

“ I think I have found everything, Dorcas.” 

“ Then you are rich, my dear. No Rosevean before you was 
ever half so rich. For none of it has been spent. They’ve all 
gone on saving and adding — almost to the last she saved and 
added. Oh ! the last thing she lost was the love of saving, and 
the jealousy of her keys she never lost. Oh ! you are very rich 
— you are the richest girl in the whole of Scilly — not even in 
St. Mary’s is there any one who can compare with you. Even 
the Lord Proprietor himself — I hardly know.” 

“ Yes. I believe I must be very rich,” said Armorel. “ Dor- 
cas, you kept her secret. Keep mine as well. Let no one 
know.” 

“No one shall know, dearie — no one. But lock the door. 
Keep the door locked always.” 

“ I will. Now, Dorcas, here are all her dresses and things. 
You must take them all away and keep them. They are for 
you.” 

“Very well, dearie. Though how I’m to wear black silk — 
Oh ! child,” she cried, out of the religious terrors of her soul — 
“it is written that it is harder for a rich man to enter into 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


141 


heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. 
My dear, if these great riches are to drag your soul down into 
hell, it would be better if they were all thrown into the sea, the 
silver punch-howls and the hags of gold and all. But there’s 
one comfort. It doesn’t say impossible. It only says harder. 
So that now and then, perhaps, a rich man may wriggle in — just 
one — and oh ! I wish, seeing the number of rich people there 
are in the world, that there’d been shown one camel — only a 
single camel — going through the needle’s eye. Think what a 
miracle ! ’Twould have brought conviction to all who saw it, 
and consolation ever afterwards to all who considered it — oh ! 
the many thousands of afflicted souls who are born rich ! You 
are not the only one, child, who is rich through no fault of her 
own. Often have I told Justinian, thinking of her, and he not 
knowing or suspecting, but believing I was talking silly, that, 
considering the warnings and woes pronounced against the rich, 
we cannot be too thankful. But don’t despair, my dear — it is 
nowhere said to be impossible. And there’s the rich young 
man, to be sure, who was told to sell all that he had and to give 
to the poor. He went away sorrowful. You can’t do that, 
Armorel, because there are no poor on Samson. And it’s said, 

‘ Woe unto you that are rich, for you have had your consola- 
tion !’ Well — but if your money never is your consolation, and 
I’m sure I don’t know what it is going to console you for, that 
doesn’t apply to you — does it? There’s the story of the rich 
man, again — and there’s texts upon texts, when you come to 
think of them. You will remember them, child, and they will 
be your warnings. Besides, you are not going to waste and 
riot like a prodigal son, and where your earthly treasure is there 
you will not set your heart. You will go on like all the Rose- 
veans before you ; and though the treasure is kept locked up, 
you will add to it everv year out of your savings, just as they 
did.” 

“ There is another parable, Dorcas. I think I ought to re- 
member that as well. It is that of the talents. If the man 
who* was rich with five talents locked them up, he would not 
have been called a good and faithful servant.” 

“ Yes, dearie, yes. You will find some Scripture to comfort 
and assure your soul, no doubt. There’s a good deal in Script- 
ure. Something for all sorts, as they say. Though, after all, 


142 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


riches is a dangerous thing. Child ! if they knew it over at St. 
Mary’s, not a young man in the place but would be sailing over 
to Samson to try his luck. Our secret, child, all to ourselves.” 

“Yes; our secret, Dorcas. And now take away all these 
things, everything that belonged to her — there are her shoes, 
take them too. I want the room to be all my own. So.” 

When all the things w T ere gone, Armorel closed and locked 
the door. Then she ran out the house gasping, for she choked. 
Everything was turned into gold. She gasped and choked and 
ran out over the hill and down the steps and across the narrow 
plain, and up the northern hill, hoping to drive some of the 
ghosts from her brain, and to shake off some of the bewildering 
caused by the great surprise. But a good deal remained, and 
especially the religious terrors suggested by that pious Bryanite 
Christian and Divider of the Word, Dorcas Tryeth. 

When she sat down in the old place upon the earn, the great 
gulf between herself and Bryher Island reminded her of that 
great gulf in the parable. How if she should be the rich man 
sitting forever and forever on the red-hot rock, tormented with 
pain and thirst — and how if on Samson Hill beyond she should 
see Abraham himself, the patriarch, with Lazarus lying at his 
feet — as yet she had developed no Lazarus — but who knows 
the future ? The rich man must have been a thoughtless and 
selfish person. Until now the parable never interested her at 
all ; why should it ? She had no money. 

The other passages, those which Dorcas had kindly quoted 
in this her first hour of wealth, came crowding into her mind, 
and told her they were come to stay. All these texts she had 
previously classed with the denunciations of sins the very mean- 
ing of which she knew not. She had no concern with such 
wickedness. Nor could she possibly understand how it was 
that people, when they actually knew that they must not do 
such things, still went on doing them. Now, however, having 
become rich herself, all the warnings of the New Testament 
seemed directed against herself. Already the load of wealth 
was beginning to weigh upon her young shoulders. 

She changed the current of her thoughts. Even the richest 
girl cannot be always thinking about woes and warnings. Else 
she would do nothing, good or bad. She began to think about 
the outer world. She had been thinking of it constantly ever 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


143 


since Roland left her. Now, as she looked across the broad 
roadstead, and remembered that thirty miles beyond Telegraph 
Hill rose the cliffs where the outer world begins — they can be 
seen on a clear day — a longing, passionate and irresistible, 
seized her. She could go away now, whenever she pleased. 
She could visit the outer world and make the acquaintance of 
the people who live in it. 

She laughed, thinking how Justinian, who had never been he> 
yond St. Mary’s, pictured, as he was fond of doing, the outer 
world. The Sea of Tiberias was to him the Road ; the Jordan 
was like Grinsey Sound ; the steep place down which the swine 
fell into the sea was like Shipman’s Head ; the Sermon on the 
Mount took place on just such a spot as the earn of the North 
Hill on Samson, with the sun shining on the Western Islands ; 
the New Jerusalem in his mind was a city consisting of one 
long street with stone houses, roofed with slate ; each house 
two stories high, a door in the middle, and one window on each 
side. On the north side of the New Jerusalem was the harbor, 
with the ships, the seashore, and the open sea beyond ; on the 
south side was a hay with beaches of white sand and black 
rocks at the entrance, exactly like Porth Cressa. And it was a 
quiet town, with seldom any noise of wheels, and always the 
sound of the sea lapping on either hand, north or south. 

Now there was nothing to keep her; she could go to visit 
the outer world whenever she pleased — if only she knew how. 
A girl of sixteen can hardly go forth into the wide, wide world 
all alone, announcing to the four corners her desire to make the 
acquaintance of everybody and to understand everything. 

And then she began to remember her teacher’s last instruc- 
tions. The perfect girl was one who had trained her eye and 
her hand ; she could play one instrument well ; she understood 
music; she understood art; she was always gracious, sympa- 
thetic, and encouraging ; she knew how to get their best out of 
men ; she was always beautifully dressed ; she had the sweetest 
and the most beautiful manners. 

And here she blushed crimson, and then turned pale, and felt 
a pang as if a knife had pierced her very heart. For a dread- 
ful thought struck her. She thought she understood at last the 
true reason why Roland never came back, though he promised, 
and looked so serious when he promised. 


144 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


Why? why? Because she was so ill-mannered. Of course 
that was the reason. Why did Roland speak so strongly about 
the perfect girl’s gracious and sympathetic manners, unless to 
make her understand in this kindly and thoughtful way how 
much was wanting in herself ? Of course he only looked upon 
her as a common country girl, who knew nothing, and would 
never learn anything. He wanted her to understand that — to 
feel that she would never rise to higher levels. He drew this 
picture of the perfect girl to make and keep her humble. Nay, 
but now she had this money — all this wealth — now — now — 
She sprang to her feet and threw out her arms, the gesture that 
she had learned I know not where. “ Oh !” she cried, “ it is 
the gift of the five talents ! I am not the rich young man. I 
have not received these riches for my consolation. They are 
my five talents. I will go away and learn — I will learn. I will 
become the perfect girl. I will train eye and hand. I will 
grow — grow — grow — to my full height. That will be true 
work in the service of the giver of those talents. I shall be- 
come a good and faithful servant when I have risen to the stat- 
ure that is possible for me !’’ 


Pakt II. 


CHAPTER I. 

SWEET COZ. 

“ I suppose,” said Philippa, “ that wc were obliged to ask her.” 

“ Well, my dear,” her mother replied, “ Mr. Jagenal is an old 
friend, and when — ” Her voice dropped, and she did not finish 
the sentence. It is absurd to finish a sentence which is under- 
stood. 

“ Perhaps she will not do anything very outrageous.” 

“ Well, my dear, Mr. Jagenal distinctly said that her man- 
ner — ” Again she left the sentence unfinished. Perhaps it 
was her habit. 

“ As she bears our name and comes from our place, we can 
hardly deny the cousinship. In a few minutes, however, we 
shall know the worst.” 

“ Philippa, dressed for dinner, was standing before the fire, 
tapping the fender impatiently with her foot, and playing with 
her fan. A handsome girl of three or four and twenty : hand- 
some, not pretty, if you please, nor lovely. By no means. Hand- 
some, with a kind of beauty which no painter or sculptor would 
assign to Lady Yenus, because it lacked softness ; nor to Diana, 
because that huntress, chaste and fair, was country-bred, and 
Philippa was of the town — urban. The young lady was perfect- 
ly well satisfied with her own style of beauty. If she exagger- 
ated a little its power, that is a common feminine mistake. The 
exaggeration brings to dress a moral responsibility. Philippa 
was dressed this evening in a creamy white silk, which had the 
effect of softening a face and manner somewhat cold and even 
hard. The young men of the period complained that Philippa 
was stand-offish. Certainly she did not commit the mistake, 
too common among girls, of plunging straight off into sympa- 
7 


146 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


thetic interest with every young man. Philippa waited for the 
young men to interest her, if they could. Generally, they could 
not. And, while many girls listen with affected deference to 
the opinions of the young man, Philippa made the young man 
receive hers with deference. These plain facts show, perhaps, 
why Philippa, at twenty-four, was still free and unengaged. 

In appearance she was tall — all young ladies who respect them- 
selves are tall in these days ; her features were clearly cut, if a 
little pronounced; her hazel eyes were intellectually bright, 
though cold ; her hair, the least marked feature, was of a common 
brown color, but she treated it so as to produce a distinctive 
effect ; her mouth was fine, though her lips were rather thin ; 
her figure was correct, though Venus herself would have preferred 
more of it, and, perhaps, that more flexible. But it is the com- 
monplace girl, we know, who runs to plumpness. 

She was dressed with greater care than usual this evening, 
because people were coming, but not to dinner. The only guests 
at dinner were to be one Mr. Jagenal, the well-known family 
solicitor, of Lincoln’s Inn, and a certain far-off cousin, named 
Armorel Bosevean, from the Scilly Isles, and her companion and 
chaperon, one Mrs. Jerome Elstree — unknown. 

“ My dear,” her mother began, “ you are too desponding. Mr. 
Jagenal assured your father — ” She dropped her voice again. 

“ Oh ! He is an old bachelor. What does he know ? Our 
cousin comes from Scilly. So did we. It does very well to talk 
of coming from Scilly, as if it were something grand, but I have 
been looking into a book about it. Old families of Scilly, we 
say. Why, they have never been anything but farmers and 
smugglers. And our cousin, I hear, is actually, a small tenant- 
farmer — a flower-farmer — a kind of market gardener! She 
grows daffodils and jonquils and anemones and snowdrops, and 
sells them. Very likely the daffodils on our table have come 
from her farm. Perhaps she will tell us about the price they 
fetch a dozen. And she will inform us at dinner how she counts 
the stalks and makes out the bills.” 

“ Absurd ! She is an heiress. Mr. Jagenal says — ” 

“An heiress? How can she be an heiress?” Philippa re- 
peated, with scorn. “ She inherits the lease of a little flower- 
farm. The people of Scilly are all quite, quite poor. My book 
says so. Some years ago the Scilly folk were nearly starving.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


147 


“ Your book must be wrong, Philippa. Mr. Jagenal says that 
the girl has a respectable fortune. When a man of his experi- 
ence says that, he means — ” Here her voice dropped again. 

“ Well ; the island heiress will go back, I dare say, to her in- 
heritance.” 

At this point Mr. Jagenal himself was announced — elderly, 
precise, exact in appearance and in language. 

“You have not yet seen your cousin?” he asked. 

“ No. She will be here immediately, I suppose.” 

“Your cousin came to our house five years ago. My late 
partner received her. She brought a letter from a clergyman 
then at the Scilly Islands. She was sixteen, quite ignorant of the 
w r orld, and a really interesting girl. She had inherited a very 
handsome fortune. My late partner found her tutors and guar- 
dians, and she has been travelling and learning. Now she has 
come to London again. She chooses to be her own mistress, 
and has taken a flat. And I have found a companion for her 
— widow of an artist — our young friend Alec Fielding knew 
about her — name of Elstree. I think she will do very well.” 

“ Alec knew her ? He has never told me of any lady of that 
name.” Philippa looked a little astonished. 

Then the girl of whom they were talking, with the companion 
in question, appeared. 

You know how one forms in the mind a whole image, or 
group of images, preparatory ; and how these shadows are all 
dispelled by the appearance of the reality. At the very first 
sight of Armorel, Philippa’s prejudices and expectations — the 
vision of the dowdy rustic, the half-bred island savage, the 
uncouth country maiden — all vanished into thin air. New 
prejudices might arise — it is a mistake to suppose that because 
old prejudices have been cleared away there can be no more — 
but, in this case, the old ones vanished. For while Armorel 
walked across the room, and while Mrs. Rosevean stepped for- 
ward to welcome her, Philippa made the discovery that her 
cousin knew how to carry herself, how to walk, and how to 
dress. Girls who have learned these three essentials have 
generally learned how to talk as well. And a young lady of 
London understands at the first glance whether a strange young 
person, her sister in the bonds of humanity, is also a lady. As 
for the dress, it showed genius either on the part of Armorel 


148 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


herself or of her advisers. There was genius in the devising 
and invention of it. But genius of this kind one can buy. 
There was the genius of audacity in the wearing of it, because 
it was a dress of the kind more generally worn by ladies of 
forty than of twenty-one. And it required a fine face and a 
good figure to carry it off. Ladies will quite understand when 
I explain that Armorel wore a train and bodice of green brocad- 
ed velvet ; the sleeves and the petticoat trimmed with lace. You 
may see a good deal of lace — of a sort — on many dresses ; but 
Philippa recognized with astonishment that this was old lace, 
the finest lace in the world, of greater breadth than it is now 
made — lace that was priceless — lace that only a rich girl could 
wear. There were also pearls on the sleeves; she wore mous- 
quetaire gloves — which proved many things ; there were brace- 
lets on her wrists, and round her neck she had a circlet of 
plain red gold — it was the torque found in the kist-vaen on 
Samson, but this Philippa did not know. And she observed, 
taking in all these details in one comprehensive and catholic 
glance of mind and eye, that her cousin was a very beautiful 
girl indeed, with something Castilian in her face and appear- 
ance — dark and splendid. For a simple dinner she would have 
been overdressed ; but, considering the reception to come after- 
wards, she was fittingly arrayed. She w^as accompanied by her 
companion — Philippa might have remembered that one must be 
an heiress in order to afford the luxury of such a household 
official. Mrs. Jerome Elstree was almost young enough to want 
a chaperon for herself, being certainly a good deal under thirty. 
She was a graceful woman of fair complexion and blue eyes ; if 
Armorel had desired a contrast to herself she could not have 
chosen better. She wore a dress in the style which is called, I 
believe, second mourning. The dress suggested widowhood, 
but no longer in the first passionate agony — widowhood subdued 
and resigned. 

The hostess rose from her chair and advanced a step to meet 
her guests. She touched the fingers of Mrs. Elstree. “ Very 
pleased, indeed,” she murmured, and turned to Armorel. “ My 
dear cousin” — she seized both her hands, and looked as well as 
spoke most motherly. “ My dear child, this is, indeed, a pleasure ! 
And to think that we have known nothing about your very ex- 
istence all the time ! This is my daughter — my only daughter, 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


149 


Philippa.” Then she subsided into her chair, leaving Philippa 
to do the rest. “We are cousins,” said Philippa, kindly, but 
with cold and curious eyes. “ I hope we shall be friends.” 
Then she turned to the companion. “ Oh !” she cried, with a 
start of surprise. “ It is Zoe !” 

“ Yes,” said Mrs. Elstree, a quick smile on her lips. “ For- 
merly it was Zoe. How do you do, Philippa ?” Her voice 
was naturally soft and sweet, a caressing voice, a voice of velvet. 
She glanced at Philippa as she spoke, and her eyes flashed with 
a light which hardly corresponded with the voice. “ I was 
wondering, as we came here, whether you would remember me. 
It is so long since we were at school together. How long, dear ? 
Seven years ? Eight years ? You remember that summer at 
the seaside — where was it ? One changes a good deal in seven 
years. Yet I thought, somehow, that you would remember me. 
You are looking very well, Philippa — still.” 

A doubtful compliment, but conveyed in the softest manner, 
which should have removed any possible doubt. Armorel looked 
on with some astonishment. On Philippa’s face there had risen 
a flaming spot. Something was going on below the surface. 
But Philippa laughed. 

“ Of course, I remember you very well,” she said. 

“But, dear Philippa,” Mrs. Elstree went on, softly smiling 
and gently speaking, “ I am no longer Zoe. I am Mrs. Jerome 
Elstree — I am La Veuve Elstree. i am Armorel’s companion.” 

“ I am sorry,” Philippa replied coldly. Her eyes belied her 
words. She was not sorry. She did not care whether good or 
evil had happened to this woman. She was too good a Christian 
to desire the latter, and not good enough to wish the former. 
What she had really hoped — whenever she thought of Zoe — 
was that she might never, never meet her again. And here she 
was, a guest in her own home, and companion to her own 
cousin ! 

Then Mr. Rosevean appeared, and welcomed the new cousin 
cordially. He seemed a cheerful, good-tempered kind of man, 
was sixty years of age, bald on the forehead, and of aspect like 
the conventional Colonel of Punch — in fact, he had been in the 
army, and served through the Crimean war, which was quite 
enough for honor. He passed his time laboriously considering 
his investments — for he had great possessions — and making 


150 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


small collections which never came to anything. He also wrote 
letters to the papers, but these seldom appeared. 

Then they went in to dinner. The conversation naturally 
turned at first upon Scilly, their common starting-point, and the 
illustrious family of the Roseveans. 

“ As soon as I heard about you, my dear young lady, I set to 
work to discover our exact relationship. My grandfather, Sir 
Jacob — you have heard of Sir Jacob Rosevean, Knight of Han- 
over? Yes ; naturally — he was born in the year 1760. He was 
the younger brother of Captain Emanuel Rosevean, your great- 
grandfather, I believe.” 

“ All my grandfathers were named Emanuel, except one, who 
was Mathusalem.” 

“ Quite so,” Mr. Rosevean nodded his head in approbation. 
“ The preservation of the same Christian name gives dignity to 
the family. Anthony goes with Ashley; Emanuel with Rose- 
vean. The survival of the Scripture name shows how the Puri- 
tanic spirit lingers yet in the good old stocks.” Philippa glanced 
at her mother, mindful of her own remarks on the old families 
of Scilly. “We come of a very fine old family, Cousin Armorel. 
I hope you have been brought up in becoming pride of birth. It 
is a possession which the world cannot give and the world can- 
not take away. We are a race of Vikings — conquering Vikings. 
The last of them was, perhaps, my grandfather, Sir Jacob, unless 
any of the later Roseveans — ” 

“ I am afraid they can hardly be called Vikings,” said Armorel, 
simply. 

“ Sir Jacob — my grandfather — was cast, my dear young friend, 
in the heroic mould — the heroic mould. Nothing short of that. 
For the services which he rendered to the state at the mo- 
ment of Britannia’s greatest peril he should have been raised 
to the House of Lords. But it was a time of giants — and he 
had to be contented with the simple recognition of a knight- 
hood.” 

“Jacob Rosevean” — who was it had told Armorel this — lonor 

o 

before ? And why did she now remember the words so clearly, 
“ ran away and went .to sea. He could read and write and cipher 
a little, and so they made him clerk to the purser. Then he rose 
to be purser himself, and when he had made some money he left 
the service and became Contractor to the Fleet, and supplied 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


151 


stores of all kinds during the long war, and at last he became 
so rich that they were obliged to make him a knight.” 

“The simple recognition of a knighthood,” Mr. Rosevean 
went on. “ This it is to live in an age of heroes.” 

Armorel waited for further details. Later on, perhaps, some 
of the heroic achievements of the great Sir Jacob would be 
related. Meantime, every hero must make a beginning; why 
should not Jacob Rosevean begin as purser’s clerk? It was 
pleasing to the girl to observe how large and generous a view 
her cousins took of the family greatness — never before had she 
known to what an illustrious stock she belonged. The smug- 
gling, the wrecking, the piloting, the farming — these were all 
forgotten. A whole race of heroic ancestors had taken the place 
of the plain Roseveans whom Armorel knew. Well, if by the 
third generation of wealth and position one cannot evolve so 
simple a thing as an ancient family, what is the use of history, 
genealogy, heraldry, and imagination ? The Roseveans were 
Vikings ; they were the terror of the French coast ; they went 
a-crusading with short-legged Robert ; they were Rovers of the 
Spanish Main ; the great King of Spain trembled when he heard 
their name ; they were buccaneers. Portraits of some of these 
ancestors hung on the wall ; Sir Jacob himself, of course, was 
there; and Sir Jacob’s great - grandfather, a cavalier; and his 
grandfather, an Elizabethan worthy. Presumably, these por- 
traits came from Samson Island. But Armorel had never heard 
of any family portraits, and she had grown up in shameful igno- 
rance of these heroes. There was a coat-of-arms, too, with which 
she was not acquainted. Yet there were circumstances con- 
nected with the grant of that shield by the sovereign which 
were highly creditable to the family. Armorel listened and mar- 
velled. But her host evidently believed it all ; and, indeed, it 
was his father, not himself, who had imagined these historic 
splendors. 

“ It is pleasing,” he said, “ to revive these memories between 
members of different branches. You, however, are fresh from 
the ancestral scenes. You are the heiress of the ancient island 
home ; yours is the Hall of the Vikings ; to you have been in- 
trusted the relics of the past. I look upon you and seem to see 
again the Rovers putting forth to drag down the Spanish pride. 
There are noble memories, Armorel — I must call you Armorel — 


152 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


associated with that isle of Samson, our ancient family domain. 
Let us never forget them.” 

The dinner came to an end at last, and the ladies went away. 

Mrs. Elstree sat down in the most comfortable chair by the 
fire and was silent, leaning her face upon her hands and looking 
into the firelight. Mrs. Eosevean took a chair on the other side 
and fell asleep. Philippa and Armorel talked. 

“ I cannot understand,” said Philippa, bluntly, “ how such a 
girl as you could have come from Scilly. I have been reading 
a book about the place, and it says that the people are all poor, 
and that Samson, your island — our island — is quite a small 
place.” 

“ I will tell you if you like,” said Armorel, “ as much about 
myself as you please to hear.” The chief advantage of an auto- 
biography — as you shall see, dear reader, if you will oblige me 
by reading mine, when it comes out — is the right of preserving 
silence upon certain points. Armorel, for example, said nothing 
at all about Roland Lee. Nor did she tell of the chagreen case 
with the rubies. But she did tell how she found the treasure of 
the sea-chest and the cupboard, and how she took everything, 
except the punch-bowls and the silver ships and cups, to London, 
and how she gave them over to the lawyer to whom she had a 
letter. And she told how she was resolved to repair the de- 
ficiencies of her up-bringing, and how, for five long years, she 
had worked day and night. 

“ I think you are a very brave girl,” said Philippa. “ Most 
girls in your place would have been contented to sit down and 
enjoy their good-fortune.” 

“ I was so very ignorant when I began. And — and one or 
two things had happened which made me ashamed of my igno- 
rance.” 

“ Yet it was brave of you to work so hard.” 

“ At first,” said Armorel, “ when this good-fortune came to 
me I w T as afraid, thinking of the parable of the rich man.” 
Philippa started and looked astonished. In the circle of Dives 
this parable is never mentioned. No one regardetli that parable, 
which is generally believed to be a late interpolation. “But 
when I came to think, I understood that it might be the gift of 
the five talents — a sacred trust.” 

Philippa’s eyes showed no comprehension of this language. 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


153 


Armorel, indeed, had learned long since that the Bryanite or 
Early Christian language is no longer used in society. But 
Philippa was her cousin. Perhaps, in the family, it would still 
pass current. 

“ I worked most at music. Shall I play to you ?” 

“ Nothing, dear Philippa,” said Zoe, half turning round, 
“would please you so much as to hear Armorel play. You 
used to play a little yourself.” (Philippa had been the pride 
and glory of the school for her playing — “A little !” Had she 
lost her memory ?) 

“ Will you play this evening ?” 

“ I brought her violin in the carriage,” said Zoe, softly. “ I 
wanted to give you as many delightful surprises as possible, 
Philippa. To find your cousin so beautiful ; to hear her play ; 
and to receive me again ! This will be, indeed, an evening to 
remember.” 

“ I will play if you like,” said Armorel, simply. “ But per- 
haps you have made other arrangements.” 

“ No — no — you can play ? But, of course, you have had 
good masters. You shall play instead of me.” 

Zoe murmured her satisfaction, and turned her face again to 
the fire. 

“ Tell me, Armorel,” said Philippa, “ all this about the Vikings 
— the Hall of the Vikings — the Rovers — and the rest of it. Was 
it familiar to you ?” 

“ No ; I have never heard of any Vikings or Rovers. And 
there is no Hall.” 

“ We are, I suppose, really an old family of Scilly ?” 

“ We have lived in the same place for I know not how many 
years. One of the outlying rocks of Scilly is called Rosevean. 
Oh ! there is no doubt about our antiquity. About the Crusa- 
ders, and all the rest of it, I know nothing. Perhaps because 
there was nobody to tell me.” 

“ I see,” said Philippa, thoughtfully. 11 Well, it does no harm 
to believe these things. Perhaps some of them are true. Sir 
Jacob, certainly, cannot be denied ; nor the Rosevcans of Samson 
Island. My dear, I am very glad you came.” 


7 * 


154 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


CHAPTER II. 

THE SONATA. 

The room was full of people. It was the average sort of re- 
ception, where one always expects to meet men and women who 
have done something ; men who write, paint, or compose ; wom- 
en who do the same, but not so well; women who play and 
sing ; women who are aesthetic, and show their appreciation of 
art by wearing hideous dresses ; women who recite ; men and 
women who advocate all kinds of things — mostly cranks and 
cracks. There are, besides, the people who know the people 
who do things ; and these, who are a talkative and appreciative 
folk, carry on the conversation. Thirdly, there are the people 
who do nothing, and know nobody, who go away and talk casual- 
ly of having met this or that great man last night. 

“ Armorel,” said Philippa, “ let me introduce Dr. Bovey -Tracy. 
Perhaps you already know his works.” 

“ Unfortunately — not yet,” Armorel replied. 

The doctor was quite a young man, not more than two or 
three and twenty. His degree was German, and his appearance, 
with long light hair and spectacles, was studiously German. If 
he could have Germanized his name as well as his appearance he 
would certainly have done so. As a pianist, a teacher of music, 
and a composer, the young doctor is already beginning to be 
known. When Armorel confessed her ignorance, he gently 
spread his hands and smiled pity. “If you will really play, 
Armorel, Dr. Bovey-Tracy will kindly accompany you.” 

Armorel took her violin out of the case and began to 
tune it. 

“ What will you play ?” asked the musician ; “ something 
serious ? So ?” 

Armorel turned over a pile of music and selected a piece. It 
was the sonata by Schumann in D minor for violin and piano- 
forte. “ Shall we play this ?” 

Philippa looked a little surprised. The choice was daring. 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


155 


The Herr Doctor smiled graciously. “ This is, indeed, serious,” 
he said. 

I suppose that to begin your musical training with the per- 
formance of heys and hornpipes and country dances is not the 
modern scientific method. But he who learns to fiddle for sail- 
ors to dance may acquire a mastery over the instrument which 
the modern scientific method teaches much more slowly. Ar- 
morel began her musical training with a fiddle as obedient to 
her as the Slave of the Lamp to his master. And for five years 
she had been under masters playing every day, until — 

The pianist sat down, held his outstretched fingers profes- 
sionally over the keys, and struck a chord. Armorel raised her 
bow, and the sonata began. 

I am told that there is now quite a fair percentage of edu- 
cated people who really do understand music, can tell good play- 
ing from bad, and fine playing from its counterfeit. In the same 
w r ay, there is a percentage — but not nearly so large — of people 
who know a good picture when they see it, and can appreciate 
correct drawing if they cannot understand fine color. Out of 
the sixty or seventy people who filled this room there were cer- 
tainly twenty — but then it was an exceptionally good collection 
— who understood that a violinist born and trained was playing 
to them, in a style not often found outside St. James’s Hall. 
And they marvelled while the music delivered its message — 
which is different for every soul. They sat or stood in silence, 
spellbound. Of the remaining fifty, thirty understood that a 
piece of classical music was going on ; it had no voice or mes- 
sage for them ; they did not comprehend one single phrase — 
the sonata might have been a sermon in the Bulgarian tongue ; 
but they knew how to behave in the presence of Music, and they 
governed themselves accordingly. The remnant — twenty in 
number, containing all the young men and most of the girls — 
understood that here was a really beautiful girl playing the fiddle 
for them. The young men murmured their admiration, and the 
girls whispered envious things — not necessarily spiteful, but cer- 
tainly envious. What girl could resist envy at sight of that 
dress, with its lace, and that command of the violin, and — which 
every girl concedes last of all, and grudgingly — that face and 
figure ? 

Philippa stood beside the piano, rather pale. She knew now 


156 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


why her old schoolfellow had been so anxious that Armorel 
should play. Kind and thoughtful Zoe ! 

The playing of the first movement surprised her. Here w r as 
one who had, indeed, mastered her instrument. At the playing 
of the second, which is a scherzo, bright and lively, she acknowl- 
edged her mistress — not her rival. At the playing of the third, 
which contains a lovely, simple, innocent, and happy tune, her 
heart melted — never, never, could she so pour into her playing 
the soul of that melody ; never could she so rise to the spirit of 
the musician, and put into the music what even he himself had 
not imagined. But Zoe was wrong. Her soul was not filled with 
envy. Philippa had a larger soul. 

It was finished. The twenty who understood gasped. The 
thirty who listened murmured thanks, and resumed their talk 
about something else. The twenty who neither listened nor 
understood went on talking without any comment at all. 

“You have had excellent masters,” said the doctor. “You 
play very well indeed — not like an amateur. It is a pity that 
you cannot play in public.” 

“You have made good use of your opportunities,” said Phi- 
lippa. “ I have never heard an amateur play better. I play a 
little myself ; but — ” 

“ I said you would be pleased,” Zoe murmured, softly, at her 
side. “ I knew you would be pleased when you heard Armorel 
play.” 

“You will play yourself, presently ?” said the Herr Doctor. 

“ No ; not this evening,” Philippa replied. “ Impossible — 
after Armorel.” 

“ Not this evening !” echoed Zoe, sweetly. 

Then there came walking, tall and erect, through the crowd, 
which respectfully parted right and left to let him pass, a young 
man of striking and even distinguished appearance. 

“Philippa,” he said, “ will you introduce me to your cousin?” 

“ Armorel, this is another cousin of mine — unfortunately, not 
of yours — Mr. Alec Feilding.” 

“ I am very unfortunate, Miss Rosevean. I came too late to 
hear more than the end of the sonata. Normann-Neruda her- 
self could not interpret that music better.” Then he saw Zoe, 
and greeted her as an old friend. “ Mrs. Elstrce and I,” he said, 
“ have known each other a long time.” 



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ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


157 


“ Fifty years, at least,” Zoe murmured. “ Is it not so long, 
Philippa ?” 

“ Will you play something else ?” he asked. “ The people are 
dying to hear you again.” 

Armorel looked at Philippa. “ If you will,” she said, kindly. 
“ If you are not tired. Play us, this time, something lighter. 
We cannot all appreciate Schumann.” 

“ Shall I give you a memory of Scilly ?” she replied. “ That 
will be light enough.” 

She played, in fact, that old ditty — one of those which she 
had been wont to play for the ancient lady — called “Prince 
Rupert’s March.” She played this with variations which that 
gallant cavalier had never heard. It is a fine air, however, and 
lends itself to the fantasy of a musician. Then those who had 
understood the sonata laughed with condescension, as a philoso- 
pher laughs when he hears a simple story ; and those who had 
pretended to understand pricked up their ears, thinking that this 
was another piece of classical music, and joyfully perceiving that 
they would understand it ; and those who had made no pretence 
jjow listened with open mouths and ears as upright as those of 
any wild-ass of the desert. Music worth hearing, this. Armorel 
played for five or six minutes. Then she stopped and laid down 
her violin. 

“ I think I have played enough for one evening,” she said. 

She left the piano and retired into the throng. A girl took 
her place. The Herr Doctor placed another piece of music be- 
fore him, lifted his hands, held them suspended for a moment, 
and then struck a chord. This girl began to sing. 

Mr. Alec Feilding followed Armorel and led her to a seat at 
the end of the room. Then he sat down beside her, and, as soon 
as the song was finished, began to talk. 

He began by talking about music, and the masters in music. 
His talk was authoritative ; he laid down opinions ; he talked as 
if he were writing a book of instruction ; and he talked as if the 
whole wide world were listening to him. But not quite so loudly 
as if that had been really the case. 

He was a man of thirty or so, his features were perfectly 
regular, but his expression was rather wooden. His eyes were 
good, but rather too close together. His mouth was hidden by 
a huge moustache, curled and twisted and pointed forward. 


158 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


Armorel disliked his manner, and for some reason or other 
distrusted his face. 

He left off laying down the law on music, and began to talk 
about things personal. 

“ I hope you like your new companion,” he said. “ She is an 
old friend of mine. I was in hopes of being able to advance her 
husband in his profession. But he died before I got the chance. 
Mr. Jagenal told me what was wanted, and I was happy in rec- 
ommending Zoe — Mrs. Elstree.” 

“ Thank you,” said Armorel, coldly. “ I dare say we shall 
get to like each other in time.” 

“ If so, I shall rejoice in having been of some service to you 
as well as to her. What is her day at home ?” 

“ I believe we are to be at home on Wednesdays.” 

“ As for me,” he said, lightly, “ I am always at home in my 
studio. I am a triple slave — Miss Rosevean — as you may have 
heard. I am a slave of the brush, the pen, and the waste-paper 
basket. If you will come with Mrs. Elstree to my studio I can 
show you one or two things that you might like to see.” 

“ Thank you,” she replied, without apparent interest in his 
studio. The young man was not accustomed to girls who showed 
no interest in him, and retired, chilled. Presently she heard his 
voice again. This time he was talking with Philippa. They 
were talking low in the doorway beside her, but she could not 
choose but hear. 

“ You recommended her — you ?” said Philippa. 

“Why not?” 

“ Do you know how — where — she has been living for the last 
seven years ?” 

“ Certainly. She married an American. He died a year ago, 
leaving her rather badly off. Is there any reason, Philippa, why 
I should not recommend her ? If there is I will speak to Mr. 
Jagenal.” 

“ No — no — no. There is no reason that I know of. Some- 
body told me she had gone on the stage. Who was it ?” 

“ Gone on the stage ? No — no ; she was married to this 
American.” 

“ You have never spoken to me about her.” 

“Reason enough, fair cousin. You do not like her.” 

“ And — you — do,” she replied slowly. 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


159 


“ I like all pretty women, Philippa. I respect one only.” 

Then other people came and were introduced to Armorel. One 
does not leave in cold neglect a girl who is so beautiful and plays 
so wonderfully. None of them interested Armorel very much. 
At the beginning, when a girl first goes into society, she expects 
to be interested and excited at a general gathering. This 
expectation disappears, and the current coin of everybody’s talk 
takes the place of interest. 

Suddenly she caught a face which she knew. When a girl 
has been travelling about for five years she sees a great many 
faces. This was a faclkwhich she remembered perfectly well, 
yet could not at first place it in any scene or assign it to any 
date. Then she recollected. And she walked boldly across the 
room and stood before the owner of that face. 

“ You have forgotten me,” she said abruptly. 

“ I — I — can I ever have known you ?” he asked. 

“Will you shake hands, Mr. Stephenson ? You were Dick 
Stephenson five years ago. Have you forgotten Armorel, of 
Samson Island in Scilly ?” 

No. He had not forgotten that young lady. But he would 
never have known her thus changed — thus dressed. 

“ Where is your friend Roland Lee ?” 

Dick Stephenson changed color. “ I have not seen him for 
a long time. We are no longer — exactly — friends.” 

“ Why not ?” she asked, with severity. “ Have you done 
anything bad ? How have you offended him ?” 

“ No, no ; certainly not.” He colored more deeply. “ I have 
done nothing bad at all,” he added with much indignation. 

“ Have you deserted him, then ? I thought men never gave up 
their friends. Come to see me, Mr. Stephenson. You shall tell 
me where he is and what he is doing.” 

In the press of the crowd, as they were going away, she heard 
Mr. Jagenal’s voice. 

“You are burning the candle at both ends, Alec,” he was say- 
ing. “ You cannot possibly go on painting, writing, editing your 
paper, riding in the Park, and going out every evening as you 
do now. No man’s constitution can stand it, young gentleman. 
Curb your activity. Be wise in time.” 


160 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


CHAPTER III. 

THE CLEVEREST MAN IN LONDON. 

Alec Feilding — everybody, even those who had never seen 
him, called him Alec — stood before the fire in his own den. In 
his hand he held a manuscript, which he was reading with great 
care, making dabs and dashes on it with a thick red pencil. 

Sometimes he called the place his studio, sometimes his study. 
No other man in London, I believe, has so good a right to call 
his workshop by either name. No other man in London, cer- 
tainly, is so well known both for pen and pencil. To be at 
once a poet, a novelist, an essayist, and a painter, and to do all 
these things well, if not splendidly, is given to few. 

The room was large and lofty, as becomes a studio. A heavy 
curtain hung across the door ; the carpet was thick ; there was 
a great fireplace, as deep and broad as that of an old hall, the 
fire burning on bricks in the ancient style. Above the fireplace 
there was no modern overmantel, but dark panels of oak, carved 
in flowers and grapes, with a coat-of-arms — his own: he claimed 
descent from the noble House of Feilding ; and in the centre 
panel his own portrait let into the wall without a frame — the 
work was executed by the most illustrious portrait-painter of 
the day — the face full of thought, the eyes charged with feel- 
ing, the features clear, regular, and classical. A beautiful por- 
trait, with every point idealized. Three sides of the room were 
fitted with book-shelves, as becomes a study, and these were 
filled with books. The fourth side was partly hung with tapes- 
try and partly adorned with armor and weapons. Here were 
also two small pictures, representing the illustrious Alec in 
childhood — the light of future genius already in his eyes — and 
in early manhood. 

A large library table, littered with books, manuscripts, and 
proofs, belonged to the study. An easel before the north light, 
and another table provided with palettes, brushes, paints, and 
all the tools of the limning trade, belonged to the studio. 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


161 


The house, which was in St. John’s Wood, stood in an old 
garden at the end of a cul-de-sac off the main road ; it was, 
therefore, quiet ; the house itself was new, built in the Style now 
familiar, and put up for the convenience of those who believe 
that there is nothing in the world to be considered except art. 
Therefore there was a spacious hall ; stairs broad enough for 
an ancient mansion led to the first floor and to the great studio. 
There were also three or four small cupboards, called bedrooms, 
dining-room, and anything else you might please. But the 
studio was the real thing. The house was built for the studio. 

The place was charged with an atmosphere of peace. Intel- 
lectual calm reigned here. Art of all kinds abhors noise. One 
could feel here the silence necessary for intellectual efforts of 
the highest order. Apart from the books and the easel and 
this silence, the character of the occupant was betrayed — or 
perhaps proclaimed — by other things. The furniture was mas- 
sive ; the library-table of the largest kind ; the easy-chairs by 
the fire as solid and comfortable as if they had been designed 
for a club smoking-room ; a cabinet showed a collection of china 
behind glass ; the appointments, down to the inkstand and the 
paper-knife, were large and solid ; all together spoke not only 
of the artist, but of the successful artist ; not only of the man 
who works, but of one who works with success and honor ; the 
man arrived. The things also spoke of the splendid man, the 
man who knows that success should be followed by the splen- 
did life. Too often the successful man is a poor-spirited creat- 
ure, who continues in the humble middle-class style to which 
he was born ; is satisfied with his suburban villa, never wants a 
better house or one more finely appointed, and has no craving 
for society. What is success worth if one does not live up to 
it ? Success is not an end ; it is the means ; it brings the power 
of getting the things that make life — wine — horses — the best 
cook at the best club — sport — the society, every day, of beauti- 
ful and well-bred women — all these things the man who has 
succeeded can enjoy. Those who have not yet succeeded may 
envy the favorite of Fortune. 

As for his work, this highly successful man owned that he 
could not desert the Muse of Painting any more than her sister 
of Belles-lettres. Happy would he be with either, were t’other 
dear charmer away ! Happier still was he with both ! And they 


162 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


were not jealous. They allowed him — these tender creatures — 
to love them both. He was by nature polygamous, perhaps. 

Therefore those who were invited to see his latest picture — 
the lucky few, because you must not think that his studio was 
open on Show Sunday for all the world to see — stayed, when 
they had admired that production, to talk of his latest poem or 
his latest story. 

Over the mantelshelf was quite a stack of invitations. And 
really one hardly knows whether Alec Feilding was most to be 
envied for his success as a painter — though he painted little ; 
or for his stories — though these were all short — much too short ; 
or for his verses — certainly written in the most delightful vein 
of vers de societe ; or for his essays, full of observation ; or for 
his social success, which was undoubted. And there is no doubt 
that there was not any man in London more envied, or who 
occupied a more enviable position, than Alec Feilding. To be 
sure, he deserved it ; because, without any exception, he was the 
cleverest man in town. 

He owned and edited a paper of his own — a weekly journal 
devoted to the higher interests of art. It was called The Muses 
Nine. It was illustrated especially by blocks from art books 
noticed in its columns. In this paper his own things first ap- 
peared : his verses, his stories, his essays. The columns signed 
“ Editor” were the leading feature of the paper, for which alone 
many people bought it every week. The contents of these col- 
umns were always fresh, epigrammatic, and delightful ; in the 
stories a certain feminine quality lent piquancy — it seemed 
sometimes as if a man could not have written these stories; 
the verses always tripped lightly, merrily, and gracefully along. 
An Abbe de la Cour in the last century might have served up 
such a weekly dish for the Parisians, had he been the cleverest 
man in Paris. 

Alec Feilding’s enemies — every man who is rising or has 
risen has enemies — consoled themselves for a success which 
could not be denied by sneering at the ephemeral character of 
his work. It was for to-day ; to-morrow, they said, it would be 
flat. This was not quite true, but, as it is equally true of nearly 
every pie'ce of modern work, the successful author could afford 
to disregard this criticism. Perhaps there may be, here and 
there, a writer who expects more than a limited immortality ; I 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


163 


do not know any, but there may be some. And these will prob- 
ably be disappointed. The enemies said further that his social 
success — also undoubted — was due to his unbounded cheek. 
This, too, was partly true, because, if one would rise at all, one 
must possess that useful quality ; without it one will surely 
sink. It is not to be denied that this young man walked into 
drawing-rooms as if his presence were a favor ; that he spoke as 
one who delivers a judgment ; and that he possessed a profound 
belief in himself. With such gifts and graces — the gift of 
painting, the gift of verse, the gift of fiction, a handsome pres- 
ence, good manners, and unbounded cheek — Alec Feilding had 
already risen very high indeed for so young a man. His ene- 
mies, again, said that he was looking out for an heiress. 

His enemies, as sometimes but not often happens, spoke from 
imperfect knowledge. Every man has his weak points, and 
should be careful to keep them to himself — friends may become 
enemies — and to let no one know them or suspect them. As 
for the weak points of Alec Feilding — had his enemies known 
them — But you shall see. 

He sat down at his library-table and began to copy the man- 
uscript that he had been reading. It was a laborious task, first 
because copying work is always tedious, and next because he 
was making alterations — changing names and places — and leav- 
ing out bits. He worked on steadily for about half an hour. 

Then there was a gentle tap at the door, and his servant — 
who looked as solemn and discreet as if he had been Charles 
the Second’s confidential clerk of the Back-stairs — came in 
noiselessly on tiptoe and whispered a name. Alec placed the 
manuscript and his copy carefully in a drawer, and nodded his 
head. 

You have already seen the man who came in. Five years 
older, and a good deal altered — changed, perhaps, for the worse 
— but then the freshness of twenty-one cannot be expected to 
last. The man who stayed three weeks in Samson, and prom- 
ised a girl that he would return. The man who broke that 
promise, and forgot the girl. He never went back to Scilly. 
Perhaps he had grown handsomer; his Vandyke beard and 
moustache were by this time thicker and longer ; he was more 
picturesque in appearance than of old ; he still wore a brown 
velvet coat ; he looked still more what he was — an artist. But 


164 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


his cheek was thin and pale, dark rings were round his eyes, his 
face was gloomy ; he wore the look of waste — the waste of en- 
ergy and of purpose. It is not good to see this look in the eyes 
of a young man. 

“ You sent for me,” he said, with no other greeting. 

“I did. Come in. Is the door shut? I’ve got some good 
news for you. Heavens 1 you look as if you wanted good news 
badly ! What’s the matter, man ? More debts and duns ? And 
I want to consult you a little about this picture of yours” — lie 
pointed to the easel. 

“Mine? No; yours. You have bought me — pictures and 
all. 

“ Just as you like. What does it matter — here — within these 
walls ?” 

“ Hush ! Even here you should not whisper it. The birds 
of the air, you know — Take great care — ” Roland laughed, 
but not mirthfully. “ Mine ?” he repeated ; “ mine ? Suppose 
I were to call together the fellows at the club, and suppose I 
were to tell the story of the last three years ? — eh ? eh ? How 
a man was fooled on until he sold himself and became a slave 
—eh ?” 

“You can’t tell that story, Roland, you know.” 

“ Some day I will — I must.” 

Alec Feilding threw himself back in his chair, crossed his 
legs, and joined his fingers. It is an attitude of judicial remon- 
strance. 

“ Come, Roland,” he said, smiling blandly. “ Let us have it 
out. It galls sometimes, doesn’t it ? But remember you can’t 
have everything — come, now. If you were to tell the fellows 
at the club, truthfully, the whole story, they would, I dare say, 
be glad to get such a beautiful pile of stones to throw at me. 
One more reputation built on pretence and humbug — eh? Yes; 
the little edifice which you and I have reared together with so 
much care would be shattered at a single stroke, wouldn’t it ? 
You could do that; you can always do that. But at some little 
cost to yourself — some little cost, remember.” 

Roland remarked that the cost or consequences of that little 
exploit might be condemned. 

“ Truly. If you will. But not until you realize what they 
are. Now my version of the story is this. There was once — • 



“ ‘I want to consult you a little about this picture of yours.' ” 



































































































































































































































ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


165 


three years ago — a fellow who had failed. The Academy 
wouldn’t accept his pictures; no one would buy them. And 
yet he had some power and true feeling. But he could not 
succeed ; he could not get anybody to buy his pictures. And 
then he was an extravagant kind of man ; he was head over 
ears in debt ; he liked to lead the easy life — dinner and billiards 
at the club — all the rest of it. Then there was another man — 
an old schoolfellow of his — a man who wanted, for purposes of 
his own, a reputation for genius in more than one branch of art. 
He wanted to seem a master of painting as well as poetry and 
fiction. This man addressed the Failure. He said, ‘ Unsuc- 
cessful Greatness, I will buy your pictures of you, on the simple 
condition that I may call them mine.’ The Failure hesitated 
at first. Naturally. He was loath to write himself down a 
Failure. Everybody would be. Then he consented. He prom- 
ised to paint no more in the style in which he had failed except 
for this other man. Then the other man, who knew his way 
about, called his friends together, set up a picture painted by 
the Failure on an easel, bought the tools, laid them out on the 
table — there they are — and launched himself upon the world as 
an artist as well as a poet and author. A Fraud, wasn’t he? 
Yet it paid both men — the Fraud and the Failure. For the 
Fraud knew how to puff the work and to get it puffed and 
praised and noticed everywhere ; he made people talk about it ; 
he had paragraphs about it ; he got critics to treat his — or the 
Failure’s — pictures seriously; in fact, he advertised them as 
successfully and as systematically as if he had been a soap-man. 
Is this true, so far ?” 

“ Quite true. Go on — Fraud.” 

“ I will — Failure. Then the price of the pictures went up. 
The Fraud was able to sell them at a price continually rising. 
And the Failure received a price in proportion. He shared in 
the proceeds. The Fraud gave him two thirds. Is that true? 
Two thirds. He ran your price, Failure, from nothing at all to 
four hundred and fifty pounds — your last, and biggest price. 
And he gave you two thirds. All you had to do was to produce 
the pictures. What he did was to persuade the world that they 
were great and valuable pictures. Is that true ?” 

Roland grunted. 

“Three years ago you were at your wits’ end for the next 


166 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


day’s dinner. You had borrowed of all your friends; you had 
pawned your watch and chain ; you were face to face with pov- 
erty — no ; starvation. Deny that, if you can.” He turned 
fiercely on Roland. “ You can’t deny it. What are you now ? 
You have a good income; you dine every day on the best of 
everything; you do yourself well in every respect. Hang it, 
Roland, you are an ungrateful dog !” 

“You have ruined my life. You have robbed me of my 
name.” 

“Let us stop heroics. If you are useful to me, I am ten 
times as useful to you. Because, my dear boy, without me you 
cannot live. Without you I can do very well. Indeed, I have 
only to find another starving genius — there are plenty about — 
in order to keep up my reputation as a painter. Go to the club. 
Call the men together. Tell them, if you like, and what you 
like. You have no proofs. I can deny it, and I can give you 
the sack, and I can get the other starving genius to carry on the 
work.” 

Roland made no reply. 

“ Why, my dear fellow — why should we quarrel ? What does 
it matter about a little reputation ? What is the good of your 
precious name to you when you are dead? Here you are — 
painting better and better every day — your price rising — your 
position more assured — what on earth can any man want more ? 
As for me, you are useful to me. If you were not, I should 
put an end to the arrangement. That is understood. Very 
well, then. Enough said. Now, if you please, we will look at 
the picture.” 

He got up and walked across the room to the easel. Roland 
followed submissively, with hanging head. He staggered as 
he went ; not with strong drink, but with the rage that tore his 
heart. 

“ It is, really, a very beautiful thing,” said the cleverest man 
in all London, looking at it critically. “ I think that even you 
have never done anything quite so good.” 

The picture showed a great rock rising precipitously from the 
sea ; at its base was a reef or projecting shelf. The shags stood 
in a line on the top of the rock; the puffins flew around the 
rock, and swam about in the water; there was a little sea on, 
but not much ; a boat with a young man in it lay off the rock, 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


167 


and a girl was on the reef, standing among the long yellow sea- 
weed ; the spray flew up the sides of the rock ; the sun was sink- 
ing. What was it but one of Roland’s sketches made in the 
Outer Islands, with Armorel for his companion ? 

“ It is very good, Roland,” Alec repeated. “ If I am not so 
good a painter myself, I am not envious. I can appreciate and 
acknowledge good work ” — under the circumstances, rather an 
extraordinary speech. But Roland’s gloomy face softened a lit- 
tle. Even at such a moment the artist feels the power of praise. 
The other, standing before the picture, watched the softening 
of the face. “ Good work ?” he repeated, by way of question. 
“ Man ! it is splendid work ! I can feel the breath of the salt 
breeze ; I can see the white spray flying over the rock ; the girl 
stands out real and living. It is a splendid piece of work, Rol- 
and.” 

“ I think it is better than the last,” the unlucky painter re- 
plied, huskily. 

“ I should rather think it is. I expect to get a great name 
for this picture ” — the painter winced — “ and you — you — the 
painter, will get a much more solid thing — you will get a big 
check. I’ve sold it already. No dealers this time. It has been 
bought by a rich American. Three hundred is the figure I can 
offer you. And here’s your check.” 

He took it, ready drawn and signed, from his pocket-book. 
Roland Lee received it, but he let it drop from his fingers ; the 
paper fluttered to the floor. He gazed upon the picture in 
silence. 

“ Well ? What are you thinking of ?” 

“ I was thinking of the day when I made the sketch for that 
picture. I remember what the girl said to me.” 

“ What the devil does it matter what the girl said ? All we 
care about is the picture.” 

“I remember her very words. You who have bought the 
picture can see the girl ; but I who painted it can hear her 
voice.” 

“ You are not going off into heroics again ?” 

“ No, no. Don’t be afraid. I am not going to tell you what 
she said. Only I told her, being pleased with what she told me, 
that she was a prophetess. Nobody ought ever to prophesy 
good things about a man, for they never come to pass. Let 


1G8 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


them prophesy disappointment and ruin and shame, and then 
they always come true. My God ! what a prophecy was hers ! 
And what has come of it ? I have sold my genius, which is my 
soul. I have traded it away. It is the sin unforgiven in this 
world and in the next.” 

“ When you give over tragedy and blank verse — ” 

“ Oh ! I have done.” 

“ I should like to ask vou a question.” 

“ Ask it.” 

“The foreground — the seaweeds lying over the boulders. 
Does the light fall quite naturally ? I hardly understand — look 
here. If the sunlight — ” 

“ You to pretend to be a painter !” Roland snorted, impa- 
tiently. “ You to talk about lights and shadows ! Man alive ! 
I wonder you haven’t been found out ages ago ! The light falls 
this way — this way — see !” — he turned the painting about to 
show how it fell. 

“Oh! I understand. Yes, yes; I see now.” Alec seemed 
not to resent this language of contempt. 

“ Is there anything else you want to know before I go ? Per- 
haps you w r ish the sea painted black ?” 

“ Cornish coast again, I suppose ?” 

“ Somewhere that way. What does it matter where you put 
it ? Call it a view on Primrose Hill. 

lie stooped and picked up the check. He looked at it sav- 
agely for a moment, as if he would like to tear it into a thou- 
sand fragments. Then he crammed it into his pocket and turned 
to go. 

“ My American,” said Alec, “ who rolls in money, is ready to 
buy another. I think I can make an advance of fifty. Shall 
we say three hundred and fifty ? And shall we expect the paint- 
ing in three months or so ? Before the summer holidays, say. 
You will become rich, old man. As for this fellow, he is going 
to the New Gallery. Go and gaze upon it, and say to yourself, 
‘ This was worth, to me, three hundred — three hundred.’ How 
many men at the club, Roland, can command three hundred for 
a picture ? Thirty is nearer their figure ; and your own, dear 
boy, would have continued to stand at double duck’s egg if it 
had not been for me. Trust me for running up your price. 
Our interests, my dear Roland, are identical and indivisible. I 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


169 . 

think you arc the only painter in history whose name will remain 
unknown, though his works will live as long as the pigments 
keep their color. Fortune is yours, and fame is mine. You 
have got the best of the bargain.” 

“ Curse you and your bargain !” 

“Pleasant words, Roland ” — his face darkened. “Pleasant 
words, if you please, or perhaps ... I know, now, what is the 
reason of this outbreak. I heard last night a rumor. You’ve 
been taking opium again.” 

“ It isn’t true. If it were, what does that matter to you ?” 

“ This, my friend. The partnership exists only so long as the 
work continues to improve. If bad habits spoil the quality of 
the work I shall dissolve the partnership, and find that other 
starving genius — plenty, plenty, plenty about. Nothing shakes 
the nerves more quickly than opium. Nothing destroys the finer 
powers of head and hand more surely. Don’t let me hear any 
more about opium. Don’t fall into bad habits, if you want to 
go on making an income. And don’t let me have to speak of 
this again. Now, there is no more to be said, I think. Well, 
we part friends. Ta-ta, dear boy.” 

Roland flung himself out of the room with an interjection of 
great strength not found in the school grammars. 

Alec Feilding returned to his table. “ Roland’s a great fool,” 
he murmured. “Because there isn’t a gallery in London that 
wouldn’t jump at his pictures, and he could sell as fast as he 
could paint. A great fool he is. But it would be very difficult 
for me to find another man so good and such a fool. On fools 
and their folly the wise man flourishes.” 


CHAPTER IV. 

MASTER OF ALL THE ARTS. 

This unreasonable person despatched, and the illustrious art- 
ist’s doubts about his lights and shadows dispelled, Alec Feild- 
ing resumed his interrupted task. That is to say, he took the 
manuscript out of the drawer and went on laboriously copying 
it. So great a writer, whose time was so precious, might surely 
give out his copying work. Lesser men do this. For half an 
8 


170 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


hour he worked on. Then the servant tapped at the door and 
came in again, noiselessly as before, to whisper a name. 

Alec nodded, and once more put back the manuscript in the 
drawer. 

The visitor was a young lady. She was of slight and slender 
figure, dressed quite plainly, and even poorly, in a cloth jacket 
and a stuff frock. Her gloves were shabby. Her features were 
fine but not beautiful, the eyes bright, and the mouth mobile, 
but the forehead too large for beauty. She carried a black 
leather roll such as those who teach music generally carry about 
with them. She was quite young, certainly not more than two- 
and-twenty. 

“ Effie ?” He looked round, surprised. 

“ May I come in for two minutes ? 1 will not stay longer. 

Indeed, I should be so sorry to waste your time.” 

“ I am sure you would, Effie.” He gave her his hand, with- 
out rising. “ Precious time — my time — there is so little of it. 
Therefore, child — ” 

“ I have brought you,” she said, “ another little poem. I think 
it is the kind of thing you like — in the vers de societe style.” 
She unrolled her leather case and took out a very neatly written 
paper. 

He read it slowly. Then he nodded his head approvingly and 
read it aloud. 

“ How long does it take you to knock off this kind of thing, 
Effie ?” 

“ It took me the whole of yesterday. This morning I cor- 
rected it and copied it out. Do you like it ?” 

“ You are a clever little animal, Effie, and you shall make your 
fortune. Yes ; it is very good, very good indeed. Austin Dob- 
son himself is not better. It is very good — light, tripping, grace- 
ful ; in good taste. It is very good indeed. Leave it with me, 
Effie. If I like it as well to-morrow as I do to-day, you may de- 
pend upon seeing it in the next number.” 

“ Oh !” she blushed a rosy red with the pleasure of being 
praised. Indeed, it is a pleasure which never palls. The old 
man who has been praised all his life is just as eager for more 
as the young poet who is only just beginning. “ Oh ! you really 
think it is good ?” 

“ I do indeed. The best proof is that I am going to buy it 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


171 


of you. It shall go into the editor’s column — my own column 
— in the place of honor.” 

“ Yes,” she replied, but doubtfully — and she reddened again 
for a different reason. “ Oh, Mr. Feilding,” she said, with an 
effort, “ I am so happy when I see my verses in print — in your 
paper — even without my name. It makes me so proud that I 
hardly dare to say what I want.” 

“ Say it, Effie. Get it off your mind. You will feel better 
afterwards.” 

“ Well, then, it cannot be anything to you — so great and high, 
with your beautiful stories and your splendid pictures. What 
is a poor little set of verses to you ?” 

“Go on — go on.” His face clouded and his eyes hard- 
ened. 

“ In the paper it doesn’t matter a bit. It is — it is — later — 
when they come out all together in a little volume — with — 
with — ” 

“ Go on, I say.” He sat upright, his chair half turned, his 
hands on the arms, his face severe and judicial. 

“ With your name on the title-page.” 

“ Oh ! that is troubling your mind, is it ?” 

“ When the critics praise the poems and praise the poet — 
oh ! is it right, Mr. Feilding ? Is it right ?” 

“ Upon my word !” He pushed back his chair and rose, a 
tall man of six feet, frowning angrily — so that the girl trembled 
and tottered. “ Upon my word ! This — from you ! This from 
the girl whom I have literally kept from starvation ! Miss Effie 
Wilmot, perhaps you will tell me what you mean ! Haven’t I 
bought your verses? Haven’t I polished and corrected them, 
and made them fit to be seen ? Am I not free to do what I 
please with my own ?” 

“ Yes — yes — you buy them. But I — oh ! — I write them !” 

“ Look here, child ; I can have no nonsense. Before I took 
these verses of you, had you any opening or market for them ?” 

“ No. None at all.” 

“ Nobody would buy them. They were not even returned by 
editors. They were thrown into the basket. Very well. I buy 
them on the condition that I do what I please with them. I 
give you three pounds — three pounds — for a poem, if it is good 
enough for me to lick into shape. Then it becomes my own. 


172 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


It is a bargain. When you leave off wanting money you will 
leave off brina-ing me verses. Then I shall look for another 
girl. There are thousands of girls about who can write verses 
as good as these.” 

The girl remained silent. What her employer said was per- 
fectly true. And yet — and yet — it was not right. 

“ What more do you want ?” he asked, brutally. 

u I am the author of these poems,” she said. “ And you are 
not.” 

“ Within these walls I allow you to say so — this once. Take 
care never to say so again. Outside these walls, if you say so, 
I will bring an action against you for libel and slander and def- 
amation of character. Remember that. You had better, how- 
ever, take these verses and go away.” He flung them at her 
feet. “ We will put an end to the arrangement.” 

“ No, no — I consent.” She humbly stooped and picked them 
up. “ Do what you like with them. I am too poor to refuse. 
Do what you please.” 

“ It is your interest, certainly, to consent. Why, I paid you 
last year a hundred pounds. A hundred pounds ! There’s an 
income for a girl of twenty ! Well, Effie, I forgive you. But 
no more nonsense. And give over crying.” For now she was 
sobbing and crying. “ Look here, Effie ” — he laid his hand on 
hers — “ some day, before long, I will put your verses in another 
column, with your name at the end — ‘ Effie Wilmot.’ Come, 
will that do ?” 

“ Oh ! if you would ! If you really would !” 

“ I really will, child. Don’t think I care much about the thing. 
What does it matter to me whether I am counted a writer of so- 
ciety verses? It pleased me that the world should think me 
capable of these trifles while I am elaborating a really ambitious 
poem. One more little volume and I shall have done. Besides, 
all this time you are improving. When you burst upon the 
world it will be with wings full-fledged and flight-sustained that 
you will soar to the stars. Fair poetess, I will make your fame 
assured. Be comforted.” 

She looked up, tearful and happy. “ Oh, forgive me !” she 
said. “ Yes ; I will do everything — exactly — as you want !” 

“ The world wants another poetess. You shall be that sweet 
singer. Let me be the first to acknowledge the gift divine.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


173 


He bowed and raised her hand and kissed the fingers of her 
shabby glove. 

“Now, child,” he said, “your visit has gained you another 
three pounds — here they are.” 

She took the money, blushing again. The glowing prospect 
warmed her heart. But the three golden sovereigns chilled her 
again. She had parted with her child — her own. It was gone 
— and he would call it his and pretend to be the father. And 
yet he was going to make such splendid amends to her. 

“ How is your brother ?” 

“ He is always the same. He works all day at his play. In 
the afternoon he creeps out for a little on his crutches. In the 
future, Mr. Feilding, we are both going to be happy, he with his 
dramas and I with my poems.” 

“ Is his drama nearly ready ?” 

“ Very nearly.” 

“ Tell him to let me read it. I can, at least, advise him.” 

“ If you will ! Oh ! you are so kind ! What we should have 
done without your help and the money you have given me, I do 
not know.” 

“You are welcome, sweet singer and heavenly poet.” The 
great man took her hand and pressed it. “ Now be thankful 
that you came here. You have cleared your mind of doubts, 
and you know “what awaits you in the future. Bring your 
brother’s little play. I should like — yes, I should like to see 
what sort of a play he has written.” 

She went away, happier for the prophecy. In the dead of 
night she dreamed that she saw Mr. Alec Feilding carried alon’g 
in a triumphal car to the Temple of Fame. The goddess her- 
self, flying aloft in a white satin robe, blew the trumpet, and a 
nymph flying lower down — in white linen — put on the laurel 
crown and held it steady when the chariot bumped over the ruts. 
It was her crown — her own — that adorned those brows. Is it 
right ? she asked again. Is it right ? 

Mr. Feilding, when she was gone, proceeded to copy out the . 
poem carefully in his own handwriting, adding a few erasures 
and corrections so as to give the copy the hall-mark of the poet’s 
study. Then he threw the original upon the fire. 

“ There !” he said, “ if Miss Effie Wilmot should have the 
audacity to claim these things as her own, at least I have the 


174 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


originals in my own handwriting — with my own corrections 
upon them, too, as they were sent to the printer. Yes, Effie, 
my dear ; some day perhaps your verses shall appear with your 
name to them. Not while they are so good, though. I only 
wish they were a little more masculine.” 

Again he lugged out that manuscript, and resumed his copy- 
ing, laboriously toiling on. The clock ticked, and the ashes 
dropped, and the silence was profound while he performed this 
intellectual feat. 

At the stroke of noon the servant disturbed him a third time. 
He put away his work in the drawer, and went out to meet this 
visitor. 

This time it was none other than a lady of quality — a grande 
dame de par le monde. She came in splendid attire, sailing into 
the studio like some richly adorned pinnace or royal yacht. A 
lady of a certain Rge, hut still comely in the eyes of man. 

“ Lady Frances !” cried Alec. “ This is, indeed, unexpected. 
And you know that it is the greatest honor for me to wait upon 
you.” 

“Yes, yes ; I know that. But I thought I should like to see 
you as you are — in your own studio. So I came. I hope not 
at an inconvenient time.” 

“ No time could be inconvenient for a visit from you.” 

“ I don’t know. Your model might be sitting to you. To 
be sure, you are not a figure-painter. But one always supposes 
that models are standing to artists all day long. Good-looking 
women, too, I believe. Perhaps you have got one hidden away 
behind the screen, just as they do on the stage. I will look.” 
She put up her glasses and w r alked across the room to look be- 
hind the screen. “ No ; she has gone. Oh ! is this your new 
picture ?” 

He bowed. “ I hope you like it.” 

“ I do,” she said, looking at it. “ It seems to me the very 
best thing you have done. Oh ! it is really beautiful ! Do you 
know, Mr. Feilding, that you are a very wonderful man ?” 

Alec laughed pleasantly. Of course he knew. “ If you think 
so,” he said. 

“You write the most beautiful verses and the most charming 
stories ; you paint the most wonderful pictures ; you belong to 
society, and you go everywhere. How do you do it ? How do 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


175 


you find time to do it ? I suppose you never want any sleep ? 
Poet, painter, novelist, journalist ! Are you a sculptor as well, 
by chance ?” 

“ Not yet. Perhaps — ” 

“ Glutton ! Are you a dramatist ?” 

“ Again — not yet. Perhaps, some time — ” 

“ Insatiate ! You are a master of all the arts. Alec Feild- 
ing, M.A.” He laughed pleasantly, again. 

“ You are the cleverest man in all London. Well ; I sent you 
another story yesterday — ” 

“ You did. I was about to write and thank you for it. Is it 
a true story ?” 

“ Quite true. It happened in my husband’s family, thirty 
years ago. They are not very proud of it. You can dress it up 
somehow with new names.” 

“ Quite so. I shall rewrite the whole.” 

“ I don’t mind. It is a great pleasure to me to see the stories 
in print. And no one suspects poor little me. Are they so very 
badly written ?” 

u The style is a little — just a little, may I say ? — jerky. But the 
stories are admirable. Do let me have some more, Lady Frances.” 

“ Remember. No one is to know where you get them.” 

“ A Masonic secrecy forms part of my character. I even put 
my own name to them for greater security.” 

He did. Every week he put his own name to stories which 
he got from people like this lady of quality. 

“ That ought to disarm suspicion. On the other hand, every- 
body must know that you cannot invent these things.” 

Alec laughed. “ Most people give me credit for inventing 
even your stories.” 

“ By the way,” she said, “ are you coming to my dinner next 
week ?” 

“ With the greatest pleasure.” 

“If you don’t come you shall have no more stories drawn 
from the domestic annals and the early escapades of the British 
aristocracy.” 

“ I assure you, Lady Frances, I look forward with the great- 
est—” 

“Very well, then. I shall expect you. And remember — 
secrecy.” 


17G 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


She laid her finger on her lips and vanished. 

The smile faded out of the young man’s face. He sat down 
again, and once more set himself to work doggedly copying out 
the manuscript, which was, indeed, none other than the story 
furnished him by Lady Frances. It was going to appear in the 
next week’s issue of the journal, with his name at the end. 

Was not Alec Feilding the cleverest all-round man in the whole 
of London — Omnium artium magister ? 


CHAPTER V. 

ONLY A SIMPLE SERVICE. 

Mrs. Elstree took the card that the maid brought her. She 
started up, mechanically touched her hair — which was of the 
feathery and fluffy kind — and her dress, with the woman’s in- 
stinct to see that everything was in order ; the quick color rose 
to her cheek — perhaps from the heat of the fire. “ Yes,” she 
said, “ I am at home.” She was sitting beside the fire in the 
drawing-room of Armorel’s flat. It was a cold afternoon in 
March ; outside, a bleak east wind raged through the streets ; 
it was no day for driving or for walking; within, soft carpets, 
easy-chairs, and bright fires invited one to stay at home. This 
lady, indeed, was one of those who love warmth and physical 
ease above all other things. Actually to be warm, lazily warm, 
without any effort to feel warmth, afforded her a positive and 
distinct physical pleasure, just as a cat is pleased by being 
stroked. Therefore, though a book lay in her lap, she had not 
been reading. It is much pleasanter to lie back and feel warm, 
with half-closed eyes, in a peaceful room than to be led away 
by some impetuous novelist into uncomfortable places, cold 
places, fatiguing places. 

She started, however, and the book fell to the floor, where it 
remained. And she rose to her feet when the owner of the 
card came in. The relict of Jerome Elstree was still young, and 
grief had as yet destroyed none of her beauty. She looked bet- 
ter, perhaps, in the morning — which says a great deal. 

“ Alec ?” she murmured — her eyes as soft as her voice. “ I 
thought you would come this afternoon.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


Ill 


“ Are you quite alone, Mrs. Elstree ?” he asked, with a look 
of warning. 

“ Quite, Mr. Feilding. And, since the door is shut, and we 
are quite alone — why — then — ” She laughed, held out both 
her hands, and put up her face like a child. 

He took her hands and bent to kiss her lips. 

“ Zoe,” he said, “ you grow lovelier every day. Last night — ” 
He kissed her again. 

“Lovelier than Philippa?” 

. “ What is Philippa beside you ? An iceberg beside a — a gar- 
den of flowers — ” 

“ There is beauty in icebergs, I have read.” 

“ Never mind Philippa, dear Zoe. She is nothing to us.” 

“ I don’t mind her a bit, Alec, if you don’t. If you begin to 
mind her — But we will wait until that happens. Why are 
you here to-day ?” 

“ I have come to call upon Mrs. Elstree, widow of my poor 
friend Jerome Elstree.” 

“ Ce pauvre Jerome ! The tears come into my eyes ” — in fact, 
they did at that moment — “look! — when I think of him. So 
often have I spoken of his virtues and his untimely fate that he 
has really lived. I never before understood that there are ghosts 
of men who never lived as well as ghosts of the dead.” 

“ And I came to call upon your charge, Miss Rosevean.” 

“ Yes ” — she said this dubiously, perhaps jealously — “ so I 
supposed. Why did you send me here, Alec? You have always 
got some reason for everything. There was no need for my 
coming — I was doing as well as I expect to do.” 

The young man looked about the room without replying to 
this question. 

“Some one,” he said, presently, “has furnished this room 
who knows furniture.” 

“ It was Armorel herself. I have no taste — as you know.” 

“And how do you get on with her? Are you happy here, 
Zoe?” 

“ I am as happy as I ever expect to be — until — ” 

“Yes, yes,” he interrupted, impatiently. “You like her, 
then ?” 

“ I like, her as much as I can like any woman. You know, 
Alec, I am not greatly in love with my own sex. If there were 
8 * 


178 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


no other women in the world than just enough to dress me, get 
my dinner, and keep my house clean, I should not murmur. 
Eve was the happiest of women, in spite of the difficulties she 
must have had in keeping up with the fashion. Because, you 
see, she was the only woman.” 

“ No doubt. And now tell me about this girl.” 

“ She is rich. To be rich is everything. Money makes an 
angel of every woman. When I was eighteen, and first met 
you, Alec, I was rich. Then you saw the wings sticking out 
visibly one on each shoulder, didn’t you ? They are gone now 
— at least,” she looked over her shoulder, “ I see them no 
longer.” 

“ I heard she was rich. Where did the money come from ?” 

“ It has been saving up for I don’t know how long. The girl 
is only twenty-one, and she has about thirty thousand pounds, 
besides all kinds of precious things worth I don’t know how 
much.” 

“ Jagenel told me she was comfortably ofi — ‘ comfortably,’ 
he said — but — thirty thousand pounds !” 

“ The mere thought of so much makes your eyes glow quite 
poetically, Alec. Write a poem on thirty thousand pounds. Well, 
that is what she has, and all her own, without any drawbacks : 
no nasty poor relations — no profligate brothers — to nibble and 
gnaw. She has not either brother or sister — an enviable lot 
when one has money. When one has no money a brother — a 
successful brother — might be useful.” 

“ And how do you get on with her ?” 

“ I think we do pretty well together. But my post is pre- 
carious.” 

“ Why ?” 

“Because the young woman is pretty, rich, and masterful. 
It is a curious thing about women that the most masterful 
soonest find their master.” 

“ You mean that she will marry.” 

“ If she gets engaged, being rich, she will certainly marry at 
once. Until she marries I believe we can get on together, be- 
cause she is totally independent of me. This afternoon, for 
example, she has gone out to look at pictures somewhere, with 
a girl she has picked up somehow — a girl who writes.” 

“ But, my dear Zoe, you must look after her. Don’t let her 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


179 


pick up girls and make friendships. You arc here to look after 
her. I hoped that you would gain her complete confidence — 
become indispensable to her.” 

“ Oh ! that is why you sent me here l Pray, my dear Alec, 
what can Armorel be to you ?” 

“Nothing, dear child,” he replied, patting her soft hand, 
“ that will bring any discord between you and me. But — make 
yourself indispensable and necessary to her.” 

“You will tell me, I dare say, presently, what you mean. 
But you don’t know this young islander. Necessary to me she 
is, as you know. Necessary to her I shall never become. We 
have nothing in common. I can do nothing for her at all, ex- 
cept go out to theatres and concerts and things in the evening. 
Even then our tastes clash. I like to laugh ; she likes to sit 
solemnly with big eyes staring — so — as if she were receiving 
inspiration. I like comic operas, she likes serious plays ; I like 
dance music, she likes classical music ; I like the fool’s para- 
dise, she likes — the other kind, where they all behave so well 
and are under no illusions. In fact, Armorel takes herself quite 
seriously all round. Of course, a girl with such a fortune can 
take herself anyhow she pleases.” 

“ She knows how to dress, apparently. Most advanced girls 
disdain dress.” 

“ But she is not an advanced girl. She is only a girl who 
knows a great deal. She is not in the least emancipated. Why, 
she still professes the Christian religion. She is just a girl who 
has set herself resolutely to learn all she can. She has been 
about it for five years. When she began, I understand that she 
knew nothing. What she means to do with her knowledge I 
have not learned. She talks French and German and Italian. 
You have heard her play ? Very well : you can’t beat that. You 
shall see some of her drawings. They are rather in your style, 
I think. A highly cultivated girl. That is all.” 

“ A female prig ? A consciously superior person ?” 

“Not a bit. Rather humble-minded. But masterful and inde- 
pendent. Where she fails is, of course, in ordinary talk. She 
can’t talk — she can only converse. She doesn’t know the pict- 
ures and painters, and poets and novelists of the day — she doesn’t 
know a single person in society. She doesn’t know any personal 
history at all. And she doesn’t care about any. That is Armorel.” 


180 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ I sec,” be replied, thoughtfully. “ Things will be difficult, 

I am afraid.” 

“ What things ? Oh ! there is another point in which she 
differs from people of society.” 

“ Yes?” 

“ When you and I, dear Alec, think and talk of people, we 
conclude that they are exactly like ourselves — do we not ? Quite 
worldly and selfish, you know. Every one with his little show 
to run for himself. Now, Armorel, on the other hand, concludes • 
that every one is like — not us — but herself. Do you catch the 
difference ? There is a difference, you know.” 

“ Sometimes, Zoe, I seem not to understand you. But never 
mind. Under your influence — ” 

“ I have no influence at all with her. I never shall have.” 

“ But, my dear Zoe, why are you here ? I want you — I re- 
peat — to exercise an overwhelming influence.” 

“ Oh ! it is impossible. Consider — you know me so well — 
how can I influence a girl who is always seeking after great 
things ? She wants everything noble and lofty and pure. She 
has what they call a great soul — and I — oh ! Alec, you know 
that I belong to the infinitely little souls. There are a great, 
great number of us, but we are very contemptible.” 

“ Let us think,” he replied. Let us contrive and devise some 
way — ” 

“ Enough about Armorel. Tell me now about yourself.” 

“ 1 am always the same.” 

“ You have come, perhaps, this afternoon,” she murmured, 
softly, “to bring me some new hope — Oh! Alec — at last — 
some hope?” 

“ I have no new hope to give you, child.” 

Both sat in silence, looking into the firelight. 

“It is seven years — seven years,” said Zoe, “since I had my 
great quarrel with Philippa. She was eighteen then — and so 
was I — I charged her with throwing herself at your head, you 
know. So she did. So she does still. Why, the woman can’t 
conceal, even now, that she loves you. I saw it in her eyes last 
night, I saw it in her attitude when she was talking to you. 
She swore after the row we had that she would never speak to 
me again. But you see she has broken that vow. I was eigh- 
teen then, and I was rich, a good deal richer than Philippa ever 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


181 


will be. When you and I became engaged I was twenty-one. 
That is four years ago, Alec. Yet, a year or two, and the girl 
you were — engaged to — will be thin and faded. For your sake, 
my dear boy, I hope that you will not keep her waiting very 
much longer before you present her to the world.” 

“ My dear child, could I help the smash that came — the smash 
and scandal? When the whole town was ringing with your 
father’s smash and his suicide, and the ruin of I don’t know 
how many people, was that the moment for us to step forward 
and take hands before the world?” 

u No ; you certainly could not. As a man of the world, you 
would have been justified in breaking off the thing — especially 
as it was only a day or two old.” 

“I could not let you go, Zoe,” he said, with a touch of real 
tenderness. “ I was madly in love.” 

“ I think you were, Aleck. I really think that at the time 
you were truly and madly in love. Else you would never have 
done a thing of which you repented the next day.” 

“ I have never repented, dear Zoe — never once.” 

“Perhaps you calculated that something would be saved out 
of the smash. Perhaps, for once in your life, you never calcu- 
lated at all upon anything. Well — I consented to keep the thing 
a secret.” 

“ You know that it was necessary.” 

“ You said so. I obeyed. But four years — four years — and 
no prospect of a termination. Consider !” She pleaded as she 
had spoken before, in the same soft, caressing, murmuring tone. 

“ I do consider, Zoe. You can have your freedom again. I 
have no right — ” 

“ Nonsense ! My freedom ? It is your own that you want. 
My freedom?” she repeated, but without raising her voice. 
“ Mine ? What could I do with it — now ? Whither could I 
turn ? Do not, I advise you, think that I will ever while I live 
restore your freedom to you.” 

“ I spoke in your own interest, believe me.” 

“ I am now what you have made me. You know what that is. 
You know what I was four years ago.” 

“ I have advised you, it is true.” 

« No ; you have led me. At the moment of my greatest 
trouble you made me break away from my own people, who 


182 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


were sorry for my misfortunes, and would have kept me among 
them in my own circle. There was no reason for me to leave 
them. The wreck of my father’s fortune was not imputed to 
me. You persuaded me to assert my own independence, and 
to go upon the stage, fof which I was as well fitted as for the 
kingdom of heaven.” 

“ I hoped — I thought — that you would succeed.” 

“ No ; what you hoped and intended was to keep me in your 
power. You would not let me go, and you could not — or would 
not—” 

“ Could not, my child. I could not.” 

“ For four years I have endured the humiliations of the actress 
who is a failure and can only take the lowest parts. You know 
what I have endured, and yet — Oh ! Aleck, your love is, indeed, 
a noble gift ! And now, for your sake, I am here, playing a part 
for you. I am the young widow of the man who never existed. 
I make up a hundred lies every day to a girl who believes every 
word — which makes it more disgraceful and more horrible. 
When one knows that she is disbelieved it is different.” 

“ Zoe, you know my position.” 

“Very well, indeed. You live in a little palace. You keep 
your man-servant and your two horses. You go every day into 
some kind of good society — ” 

“ It is necessary ; my position demands it.” 

“ Your position, my friend, has nothing to do with it. If you 
stayed at home every evening just as many copies of your paper 
would be sold. You spend all this money on yourself, Alec, be- 
cause you are a selfish person and indulgent, and because you 
like to make a great show of success.” 

“ You do not understand.” 

“ Oh, yes, I do ! You paint lovely pictures, which you sell ; 
you write admirable stories and excellent verses — at least, I sup- 
pose they are admirable and excellent. You put them into a 
paper which is your own — ” 

“ Yes, yes. But all these things leave me as poor as I was 
four years ago.” 

He got up and stood before the fire, looking into it. Then 
he walked across to the window, and gazed into the street. 
Then he returned and looked into the fire again. This restless- 
ness may be a sign that something is on a man’s mind. 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


183 


“ Zoe,” he said, at length, without looking at her, “ your im- 
patience makes you unjust. You do not understand. Things 
have come to a crisis.” 

“ What kind of a crisis ?” 

“ A financial crisis. I must have money.” 

11 Then go and make it. Paint more pictures ; write more 
poetry. Make money, as other men do. It is very noble and 
grand to pretend that you only work when you please ; but it isn’t 
business, and it isn't true.” 

“Again — you do not understand. I must have money in a 
short time, or else — ” 

“ Else — what may happen, Alec ?” She leaned forward, los- 
ing her murmuring manner for the first time. 

“ I may — I must — become bankrupt. That to me signifies 
social ruin.” 

“You have something more to say. Won’t you say it at 
once ?” 

“ If I can get over this difficulty it will be all right — my anxie- 
ties over. I thought, Zoe, when I sent you here, that, with a 
girl rich, mistress of her own, of age, it would be easy for you 
to wind yourself into her confidence and borrow, or beg, or 
somehow get what I want out of her. To borrow would be 
best.” 

“ How much do you want ? Tell me exactly.” 

“ I want, before the end of next month, about £3000. Say, 
£3500.” 

“ That is a very large sum of money.” 

“ Not to this girl. Make her lend it to you. Make up some 
story. Beg it or borrow it — and — ” he laid his hand upon her 
shoulder, but she made no movement in reply ; he stooped and 
kissed her head, but she did not look up. “ Zoe — I swear — if 
you will do this for me, our long and weary waiting shall be at 
an end. I will acknowledge everything. I will give up this 
extravagant life ; we will settle down like a couple of honest 
bourgeois; we will live over the shop if you like — that is, the 
publishing office of the paper.” He took her hand and raised 
it to his lips, but she made no response. 

“ Would she ever get the money back again ?” 

“ Perhaps. How can I tell ?” 

“ Even for the bribe you offer, Alec, I am afraid I cannot do it.” 


184 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ We will try together. We will lay ourselves out to attract 
the girl, to win her confidence. Consider. She is alone. She 
is in our hands — ” 

“ Yes, yes. But you do not know her. Alec, if I cannot 
succeed, what will you do ?” 

“ I must look out for some girl with money and get engaged 
to her. The mere fact of an engagement would be enough for 
me.” 

“ Yes,” she said, quickly, “ it would have to be. Will you 
get engaged to — to Philippa?” 

“ No ; Philippa will only have money at the death of her 
father and mother — not before. Philippa is out of the ques- 
tion.” 

“ Is there nobody among all your fine friends who will lend 
you the money ?” 

“No one. We do not lend money to each other. We go 
on as if there were no money difficulties in the world, as well 
as no diseases, no old age, no dying. We do not speak of 
money.” 

“ Friendship in society has its limits. Yes ; I see. But can’t 
you borrow it in the usual way of business people ?” 

“ I should have to show books and enter into unpleasant ex- 
planations. You see, Zoe, the paper has got a very good name, 
but rather a small circulation. Everybody sees it, but very few 
buy it.” 

“ And so you heard of Armorel, and you thought that here 
was a chance. You say to me, in plain words, ‘ If you get 
this money, there shall be an end of the false position.’ Is 
that so?” 

“ That is exactly what I do say and swear, Zoe. It is a very 
simple thing. You have only to persuade the girl to lend you 
this money, or to advance it, or to invest it by your agency — or 
something— a very simple and easy thing. You love me well 
enough to do me such a simple service.” 

“ I love you well enough, I suppose,” she replied, sadly, “ to 
do everything you tell me to do. A simple service ! Only to 
deceive and plunder this girl, who believes us all to be honor- 
able and truthful !” 

“ Oh, we shall find a way — some way — to pay her back. Don’t 
be afraid. And don’t go off into platitudes, Zoe — you are 


Zoo, he said at length y without looking at hev 9 6 youv impatience makes you unjust . 



















































































































































































































































ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


185 


much too pretty — and when it is done, and you arc openly, be- 
fore the world — ” 

“ I know you well enough to know how much happiness to 
expect. I am a fool. All women are fools. Philippa is a fool. 
And I’ve set my foolish heart on — you. If I fail — if I fail ” — 
her words sank to the softest and gentlest murmur — -“you are 
going to cast about for an heiress, and you will get engaged to 
her, and then — then — we shall see, dear Alec, what will happen 
then.” She sat up, her cheeks fiery and her eyes flashing, 
though her voice was so soft. “ Hush !” she whispered. “ I hear 
Armorel’s step !” 

They heard her voice as well outside, loud and clear. 

“ Come to my own room,” she said. “ What you want is 
there. This way.” 

“It is the girl with her — the girl who writes. They have 
gone into her own room — her boudoir — her study — where she 
works half the day. The girl lives with her brother, close by.” 

They listened, silent, with hushed breath, like conspirators. 

“ Poor Armorel !” said Zoe. “ If she only knew what we are 
plotting ! She thinks me the most truthful of women ! And all 
I am here for is to cheat her out of her money ! Don’t you 
think I had better make a clean breast and ask her to give me 
the money and let me go ?” 

“ Begin to-day,” said Alec. “ Begin to talk about me. In- 
terest her in me. Let her know how great and good — ” 

“ Hush !” 

Then they heard her voice again in the hall. 

“ No — no — you must come this evening. Bring Archie with 
you. I will play, and he shall listen. You shall both listen. 
And then great thoughts will come to you.” 

“Always great thoughts — great thoughts — great pictures,” 
Zoe murmured. “ And we are so infinitely tittle. Brother worm, 
shall we crawl into some hole and hide ourselves ?” 

Then the door opened, and Armorel herself appeared, fresh 
and rosy in spite of the cold wind. 

“My dear child,” said Zoe, softly, looking up from her cush- 
ions, “come in and sit down. You must be perishing with the 
east wind. Do sit down and be comfortable. You met Mr. 
Feilding last night, I believe.” 

The visitor remained for a quarter of an hour. Armorel had 


186 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


been to see a certain picture in the National Gallery. lie talked 
of pictures just as, the night before, he had talked of music ; 
that is to say, as one who knows all the facts about the painters 
and their works and their schools, their merits and their defects. 
He knew and could talk fluently the language of the art critic, 
just as he knew and could talk the language of the musical 
critic. Armorel listened. Now and then she made a remark. 
But her manner lacked the reverence with which most maidens 
listened to this thrice-gifted darling of the Muses. She actually 
seemed not to care very much what he said. 

Zoe, for her part, lay back in her cushions in silence. 

“ How do you like him ?” she asked, when their visitor left 
them. 

“I don’t know; I haven’t thought about him. He talks too 
much, I think. And he talks as if he were teaching.” 

“ No one has a better right to talk with authority.” 

“ But we are free to listen or not as we please. Why has he 
the right to teach everybody ?” 

“ My dear child, Alec Feilding is the cleverest man in all Lon- 
don.” 

“ He must be very clever then. What does he do ?” 

“ He does everything — poetry, painting, fiction — everything !” 

“ Oh, you will show me his poetry, perhaps, some time ? And 
his pictures I suppose we shall see in May somewhere. He 
doesn’t look as if he were at all great. But one may be wrong.” 

“ My dear Armorel, you are a fortunate girl, though you do not 
understand your good-fortune. Alec — I am privileged to call 
him Alec — has conceived a great interest in you. Oh, not of 
the common love kind, that you despise so much — nothing to 
do with your beaux yeux — but on account of your genius. He 
was greatly taken with your playing ; if you will show him your 
pictures he will give you instruction that may be useful to you. 
He wants to know you, my dear.” 

“ Well,” said Armorel, not in the least overwhelmed, “ he can 
if he pleases, I suppose, since he is a friend of yours.” 

“That is not all: he wants your friendship as a sister in art. 
Such a man — such an offer, Armorel, must not be taken lightly.” 

“ I am not drawn towards him,” said the girl. “ In fact, I 
think I rather dislike his voice, which is domineering; and his 
manner, which seems to me self-conscious and rather pompous ; 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


187 


and liis eyes, which are too close together. Zoe, if he were not 
the cleverest man in London, I should say that he was the most 
crafty.” 

Zoe laughed. “ What man discovers by experiment and ex- 
perience,” she murmured, incoherently, “ woman discovers at a 
glance. And yet they say — ” 


CHAPTER Vi. 

THE OTHER STUDIO. 

The Failure was at work in his own studio. Not the large 
and lofty chamber fitted and furnished as if for Michael Angelo 
himself, which served for the Fraud. Not at all. The Failure 
did his work in a simple second-floor back, a chamber in a com- 
monplace lodging-house of Keppel Street, Bloomsbury. No- 
where in the realms of Art was there a more dismal studio. The 
walls were bare, save for one picture which was turned round 
and showed its artistic back. The floor had no carpet ; there 
was no other furniture than a table, strewn and littered with 
sketches, paints, palettes, brushes ; there were canvases leaning 
against the wall ; there was a portfolio also leaning against the 
wall ; there was an easel and the man standing before it ; and 
there was a single chair. 

For three years Roland Lee had withdrawn from his former 
haunts and companions. No one knew now where he lived ; he 
had not exhibited ; he had resigned his membership at the club ; 
he had gone out of sight. Many London men every year go 
out of sight. It is quite easy. You have only to leave off going 
to the well-known places of resort ; very soon — so soon that it 
is humiliating only to think of it — men cease asking where you 
are ; then they cease speaking of you ; you are clean gone out 
of their memory — you and your works — it is as if the sea 
had closed over you. There is not left a trace or a sign of your 
existence. Perhaps, now and then, something may revive your 
name ; some little adventure may be remembered ; some frolic 
of youth — for the rest — nothing : silence ; oblivion. It does, 
indeed, humiliate those who look on. When such an accident 
revived the memory of Roland Lee, one would ask another what 


188 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


had become of him. And no one knew. But, of course, he 
had gone down — down — down. When a man disappears it 
means that he sinks. lie had gone out of sight ; therefore he 
had gone under. Yet, when you climb, you can never get so 
high as to be invisible. Even the President, R. A., is not invisible. 
Again, the higher that a balloon soars the smaller does it grow ; 
but the higher a man climbs up the Hill of Fame the bigger 
does he show. It is quite certain that when a man has disap- 
peared he has sunk. The only question — and this can never be 
answered — is, what becomes of the men who sink? One man 
I heard of — also, like Roland, an artist — who has been traced to 
a certain tavern, where he fuddles himself every evening, and 
where you may treat with him for the purchase of his pictures 
at ten shillings — ay, or even five shillings — apiece. And two 
scholars gone under — I heard of the other day. They now re- 
side in the same lodging-house. It is close to the Gray’s Inn 
Road. One lives in the garret, and the other occupies the cellar. 
In the evening they get drunk together and dispute on points of 
the finer scholarship. But this only accounts for three. And 
where are all the rest ? 

Of Roland Lee nobody knew anything. There was no story 
or scandal attached to him ; he was no drinker ; he was no gam- 
bler ; he was no profligate. But he had vanished. 

Yet he had not gone far — only to Keppel Street, which is real- 
ly a central place. Here he occupied a second floor, and lived 
alone. Nobody ever called upon him ; he had no friends. Some- 
times he sat all day long in his studio doing nothing ; sometimes 
he went forth and wandered about the streets ; in the evening he 
dined at restaurants where he was certain to meet none of his 
old friends. He lived quite alone. As to that rumor concerning 
opium, it was an invention of his employer and proprietor. He 
did not take opium. Day after day, however, he grew more 
moody. What developments might have followed in this lonely 
life I know not. Opium, perhaps; whiskey, perhaps; melan- 
cholia, perhaps. And from melancholia — good Lord deliver us ! 

One thing saved him. The work which filled his soul with 
rage also kept his soul from madness. When the spirit of his 
art seized him and held him he forgot everything. He worked 
as if he were a free man : he forgot everything, until the time 
came when he had to lay down his palette and to come back to 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


189 


the reality of liis life. Some men would have accepted the posi- 
tion ; there were, as we have seen, compensations of a solid and 
comfortable kind ; had he chosen to work his hardest, these 
golden compensations might have run into four figures. Some 
men might have sat and laughed among their friends, forgetting 
the ignominy of their slavery. Not so Roland. His chains 
jangled as he walked ; they cut his wrists and galled his ankles ; 
they filled him with so much shame that he was fain to go away 
and hide himself. And in this manner he enjoyed the great 
success which his employer had achieved for his pictures. To ar- 
rive at the success for which you have airways longed and prayed 
— and to enjoy it in such a fashion. Oh ! mockery of fate ! 

This morning he was at work contentedly — with ardor. He 
was beginning a picture from one of his sketches ; it was to be 
another study of rocks and sea ; as yet there was little to show ; 
it was growing in his brain, and he was so fully wrapped in his 
invention that he did not hear the door open, and was not con- 
scious that for the first time within three years he had a visitor. 

She opened the door and stood for a moment looking about 
her. The bare and dingy walls, the scanty furniture, the mean- 
ness of the place, made her very soul sink within her. For they 
cried aloud the story of the painter. 

For five long years she had thought of him. He was success- 
ful ; he was rising to the top of the tree ; he was conquering 
the world — so brave, so strong, so clever ! There was no height 
to which he could not rise. She should find him splendid, 
triumphant, and yet modest — her old friend the same, hut glori- 
fied. And she found him thus, in this dingy den — so low, so 
shabby ! Consider, if she had risen while he was sinking, how 
great was now the gulf between them ! Then she stepped into 
the room and stood beside the artist at his easel. 

“ Roland Lee,” she whispered. 

He started, looked up, and recognized her. “ Armorel !” he 
cried. 

Then, strange to say, instead of hastening to meet and greet 
her, and to hold out hands of welcome, he stood gazing at her 
stupidly, his face changing color from crimson to white. His 
hair was unkempt, she saw ; his cheeks worn ; and his eyes 
haggard, with deep lines round them ; and his dress was shabby 
and uncared for. 


190 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ You have not forgotten me, then ?” she said. 

“ Forgotten you ? No. How could I forget you V 1 

“ Then are you pleased to see me ? Shake hands with me, Rol- 
and Lee.” 

He complied, but with restraint. “ Have you dropped from 
the clouds ?” he asked. “ How did you find me here ?” 

“ I met your old friend Pick Stephenson. He told me that 
you lived here. You are no longer friends ; but he has seen you 
going in and coming out. That is how I found you. Are you 
well, Roland ?” 

“ Yes, I am well.” 

“ Does all go well with you, old friend ?” 

“ Why not ? You see — I have got a magnificent studio ; there 
is every outward sign of wealth and prosperity ; and if you look 
into any art criticisms you will find the papers ringing with my 
name.” 

“You are changed.” Armorel passed over the bitterness of 
this speech. “ Y<Ju are a little older, perhaps.” She did not tell 
him how haggard and worn he looked, how unkempt and un- 
happy. 

“ Let me see some of your work,” she said. The picture on 
the easel was only in its very first stage. She looked about the 
room. Nothing on the walls but one picture with its face turned 
round. “ May I look at this ?” She turned it round. It was the 
picture of herself, “ The Princess of Lyonesse,” the sketch of 
which he had finished on the last day of his holiday. “ Oh !” 
she cried, “ I remember this. And you have kept it, Roland — - 
you have kept it. I am glad.” 

“ Yes, I have kept the only picture which I can call ray own.” 

“ Was I like that in those days ?” 

“ You are like that now. Only the little princess has become 
a tall queen.” 

“ Yes, yes ; I remember. You said, then, that if I should ever 
look like this, you would be proved to be a painter indeed. Rol- 
and, you are a painter indeed.” 

“ No, no,” he said ; “ I am nothing — nothing at all.” 

“We were talking — when you made this sketch — of how one 
can grow to his highest and noblest.” 

“ I have grown to my lowest,” he replied. “ But you — you — ” 

“ What has happened, my friend ? You told me so much once 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


191 


about yourself — you taught me so much — you put so many new 
things into my head — you must tell me more ! What has hap- 
pened ?” 

“ Nothing.” 

“ Why are you here in this poor room ? I have been to studios 
in Rome and Florence, and Paris and Vienna ; they are lovely 
rooms, fit for a man whose mind is always full of lovely images 
and sweet thoughts. But this — this room is not a studio. It 
is an ugly little prison. How can light and color visit such a 
place ?” 

“ It explains itself. It proclaims aloud — Failure — Failure — 
Failure !” 

“ This picture is not a Failure.” 

“ My name is unknown. I work on like a mole under ground. 
I am a Failure. You have seen Dick Stephenson. What did he 
say of me ?” 

“ He said that you must have left off working. But you 
have not.” 

“ What does it matter how much or how long a Failure goes 
on working ?” 

“ Have you lost heart, Roland ?” 

“ Heart and hope and faith. Everything is lost, Armorel !” 

“ You have lost your courage because you have failed. But 
many men have failed at first — great men. Robert Browning 
failed for years. You were brave once, Roland. You were able 
to say that if you knew you were doing good work you cared 
nothing for the critics.” 

“ You see, Dick was right. I no longer do any work. I never 
send anything to the exhibitions.” 

“ But why — why — why ?” 

“ Ask me no more questions, Armorel. Go away and leave me. 
How beautiful and glorious you have grown, child ! But I knew 
you would. And I have gone down so low, and — and — well, 
you see ! Yes. I remember how we talked of growing to our 
full height. We did not think, you see, of the depths to which 
we might also drop. There are awful depths, which you could 
never guess.” 

He sank into the chair, and his head dropped. 

Armorel stood over him, the tears gathering into her eyes. 

“ Roland,” she laid her hand upon his shoulder — there is no 


192 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


action more sisterly — “since I have found you I shall not let 
you go again. It is five years since you went away. You will 
tell me about yourself, when you please. I have a great deal to 
tell you. Don’t you remember how sympathetic you used to 
be in the old days ? I want a great deal more sympathy now, 
because I am five years older, and I am trying so much. I want 
you to hear me play — you. were the first who ever praised my 
playing, you know. And you must see my drawings. I have 
worked every day, as I promised you I would. I have remember- 
ed all your instructions. Come and see your pupil’s work, my 
master.” 

He made no reply. 

“ You live too much alone,” she went on. “ Dick Stephenson 
told me that you had given up your club, and that you go 
nowhere, and that no one knows how or where you live. You 
have dropped quite away from your old friends. Why did you 
do that? You live in this dismal room by yourself — alone with 
your thoughts ; no wonder you lose courage and faith.” She 
opened the portfolio and drew out a number of the sketches. 
“ Why,” she said, “ here are some of those you made with me. 
Here is Castle Bryher — you in the boat, and I on the ledge 
among the sea-weed under the great rock — and the shags in a 
row on the top ; and here is Porth Cressa — and here Peninnis — 
and here Round Island. Oh ! we have so many things to talk 
about. Will you come to see me ?” 

“You had better leave me alone, Armorel,” he said. “ Even 
you can do no good to me now.” 

“ When will you come ? See — I will write down my address. 
I have a flat, and it is ever so much better furnished than this, 
sir. Will you come to-night ? I shall be at home. There will 
be no one but Effie Wilmot. Oh ! I am not going to talk about 
you, but about myself. I want your praise, Roland, and your sym- 
pathy. Both were so ready — once. Will you come to-night ?” 

“ You will drive me mad, I think, Armorel !” 

“ Will you come ?” 

He shook his head. 

“ I have got to tell you how I became rich, if you will listen. 
You must come and hear my news. Why, there is no one but 
you in all London who knew me when I lived on Samson 
alone with those old people. You will come to-night, Roland?” 


AKMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


193 


Again she laid her hand upon his shoulder. “ I will ask no 
questions about you — none at all. You will tell me what you 
please about yourself. But you must let me talk to you about 
myself, as frankly as in the old days. If you have got any kind- 
ly memory left of me at all, Roland, you will come.” 

He rose and lifted his shameful eyes to hers, so full of pity 
and of tears. 

“ Yes,” he said ; “ I will do whatever you tell me.” 


CHAPTER VII. 

A CANDID OPINION. 

Youth in the London lodging-house ! Youth quite poor — 
youth ambitious — youth with a possible future — youth meditat- 
ing great things ! Walk along the streets of Lodging-land — there 
are miles of such streets — and consider with trembling that the 
dingy houses contain thousands of young people — boys and girls 
— who have come to the city of golden pavements to make — not 
a fortune, unless that happens as well — but their name. In the 
long struggle before the lowest rung of the ladder is reached 
they endure hardness, but they complain not. Everything is 
going to be made up to them in the splendid time to come. 

Something more than a year ago two such young people came 
up from the country, and found shelter in a London lodging- 
house, where they could work and study until success should 
arrive. They were boy and girl, brother and sister — twins. 
They had very little money, and could afford no more than one 
sitting-room. Therefore one worked in the sitting-room and 
the other in a bedroom, because their occupations demanded 
solitude. The one in the sitting-room was the girl. She was 
engaged in the pursuit of poetry ; she made verses continually, 
every day. Unless she was reading verse, she was either mak- 
ing or polishing or devising verses. Of all pursuits in the world 
this is at once the most absorbing and the most delightful. It 
is, also, with the greater part of those who follow it, the most 
useless. Thomas the Rhymer sits down and takes his pen ; it 
is nine of the clock. He considers; he writes; he scratches 
out ; he writea^again ; he teprrects again ; after ten minutes or 
9 * 


104 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


so lie looks up. It is three in the afternoon ; the luncheon-hour 
is past ; the morning is gone ; all he has to show for the six 
golden hours, when an account of them is demanded, will be a 
single stanza of a ballade. And perhaps not a single editor will 
look at it. To Effie Wilmot, the girl-twin, thus engaged morn- 
ing after morning, the hours become moments and the days min- 
utes. The result and outcome of her labors you have already 
learned. But she was young, and she lived in hope. A few 
more weeks, and the great man, her patron, would have satisfied 
that whim of wishing to be thought a poet of society. Strange 
that one who painted pictures of such wonderful beauty, who 
wrote such charming stories in such endless variety — stories 
quaint and bizarre, stories pathetic, stories humorous — should 
so condescend ! What could a few simple verses — such as hers 
— do to increase his fame ? However, that was nearly over. 
She felt quite happy and light-hearted ; as happy as if, like other 
poets, she was Avriting things that would appear with her own 
name ; she pursued the light and airy fancies of her brain, capt- 
uring one or two, chaining them in the prison of her rhymes, 
which, of course, were set to the old-new tunes affected by the 
little poets of the day. If they have got no message to deliver, 
they can at least come on the stage and repeat over again the 
old things clad in dress revived. We can keep on dressing up 
in the poet’s habit until the poet himself shall come along. 

Effie worked on, sitting at the window. Poets can work any- 
where, though, of course, they ought to sit habitually on the 
sides of hills, with hanging woods and mountain-streams and 
waterfalls. But they can work just as well in a mean London 
lodging, such as this where Effie sat, looking out, if she looked 
through the curtain, upon a most commonplace street. We can 
all — common spirits as well as poets — rise above our streets 
and houses and our dingy setting — otherwise there would be 
no work done at all. Nay, if we were all cockered up, and daint- 
ily surrounded with things aesthetic and artistic and beautiful, 
I believe we should be so happy that nobody would ever do any- 
thing. The poet would murmur his thoughts in indolent rhyme 
by the fireside ; the musician would drop his fingers among the 
notes, eohoing faintly and imperfectly the music in his soul — 
all for his own enjoyment; the story-teller would tell his stories 
to his wife ; the dramatist would make plots without words for 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


195 


his children to act ; the painter would half -sketch his visions 
and leave them unfinished. Art would die. 

No such temptations were offered to Effie. The aesthetic 
movement had not touched that ground-floor front. The shaky- 
round table stood under the flaring gas which every night made her 
head ache ; the chiffonnier contained in its recesses the tea and 
sugar and bread and butter, and, when the money ran to such 
luxuries, her jam or her honey or her oranges. There was one 
easy-chair and one arm-chair; and before the window a small 
square table, which had, at least, the merit of being firm ; and at 
this she wrote. Everybody knows this kind of room perfectly. 

The poetic workshop is always kept locked. No poet ever 
tells of the terrific struggles he has to encounter before he 
finally subdues his thought and compels it to walk or run in 
double harness of rhythm and rhyme. No poet ever confesses 
how he sometimes has to let that thought go because he cannot 
subdue it — nay, the same discomfiture has been reported of those 
who, like M. Jourdain, speak in prose. And no poet ever shows, 
as a painter will readily show us, the first sketch, the first rough 
draft of a poem, the unfinished lines, the first feeble attempts at 
the rhythmic expression of a great thought. Let us respect the 
mystery of the craft — have we not all dabbled in verse and essayed 
to play upon the scrannel-pipe ? 

It was towards noon, however, that Effie was disturbed by 
the arrival of a visitor. The event was so unusual — so unprece- 
dented even — that no instructions had ever been given to the 
lodging-house servant in the art of introducing callers. She 
therefore opened the door and put in her head — “A gentle- 
man, miss” — and went down-stairs, leaving the gentleman to 
walk in if he pleased. 

“ You, Mr. Feilding ?” Effie cried, springing to her feet. “ Oh ! 
This is, indeed — ” 

The great man took her hand. “ My dear child,” he said, “ I 
have been thinking over our conversation of the other day. I 
am, of course, only anxious to be of service to you and to your 
brother, and so I thought I would call.” He was quite magnifi- 
cent in his fur-lined coat, and he was very tall and big, so that he 
seemed to fill up the whole room. But he had an unusual air of 
hesitation. “ 1 thought,” he repeated, “ that I would call. Yes — ” 

The girl sat with her hands in her lap, waiting. 


196 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ You remember what I told you about — the — the verses which 
you sometimes bring me — ” 

“ Oh ! Yes. I remember. It is so kind of you, Mr. Feed- 
ing ; so very kind and noble — ” For the moment the dazzling 
prospect of seeing her verses acknowledged as her own in place 
of seeing them adopted by the editor made her believe that none 
but a truly noble person could do such a thing. 

“I mean to begin even sooner than I had intended. It is 
true that, when I took your verses, I made them my own by 
those little touches and corrections which, as you know very 
well, distinguish true poetry from imitation — ” It was not 
until he was gone that Effie remembered that not a single alter- 
ation had ever been made. So great is the power of the human 
voice that, for the moment, she listened and acquiesced, subdued 
and ashamed of herself — “At leasty-my. young friend, the time 
for alteration and improvement is past. You can now stand 
alone — your verses signed — if, of course, we .remain, as I hope, 
on the same friendly relations.” 

“ Oh !” she murmured. 

“ Enough. We understand each other. Your brother, you 
told me, is at work on a play — a romantic drama.” 

“ Yes. He has finished it. He has been at work upon it for 
two years, thinking of nothing else all day.” 

Mr. Feilding nodded approval. 

“ That is the way,” he said, heartily, “ to produce good work. 
Perfect — absolute — devotion — regardless of any earthly consid- 
eration. Art — art — before all else. And now it is done ?” 

“ Yes ; he is copying it out.” 

“ Effie ” — he suddenly changed the subject — “ you have never 
told me of your resources. Tell me ! I do not ask out of idle 
curiosity. That you are not rich I know — ” 

“ No, we are not rich. We have a little — a thousand pounds 
apiece — and we have resolved to live on that, and on w'hat we 
can get besides, until we have made our way. We have no rich 
relations to help us. My father is a country clergyman with a 
small living. We came to town so that Archie could get treat- 
ment for his hip. He is better now, and we shall stay altogether 
if we can only hold on.” 

“ A thousand pounds each. That is seventy pounds a year, I 
suppose ?” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


197 


“ Yes. But during the last twelve months you have given me 
a hundred pounds for my verses — three pounds for every poem, 
and there were thirty-three altogether in the volume — ‘ Voices 
and Echoes,’ you know.” 

The poet who had published these verses did not change color 
or show any sign of emotion in the presence of the poet who 
had written them. He nodded his head. “ Yes,” he said, “on 
a hundred and seventy pounds a year you can live — on seventy 
you would starve. Where is your brother ?” 

“ He works in his bedroom. It is the room behind, on the 
same floor. My room is up-stairs.” 

“He requires, I suppose, good food, wine, and certain luxu- 
ries ?” . • 

“ When we can afford them. Since you took my verses we 
have been able to buy things.” 

“ Your money is well expended. I should like to see your 
brother, Effie.” 

“ I will take you to him,” she said. But she hesitated and 
blushed. “ Oh ! Mr. Feilding, Archie knows nothing about the 
— the volumes, you know ! He sees only the verses in the pa- 
per. And he only knows that you have been so kind as to take 
them. Don’t tell him anything else.” 

“ Your secret, Effie,” he replied, generously, “ is safe with me. 
He shall not know it from my lips.” 

She thanked him. Again it was not until he was gone that 
Effie remembered that he could not possibly reveal that fact to 
her brother. 

She led him into the room, at the back of which was her 
brother’s study and bedroom as well. 

Her brother might have been herself, save for a slight manly 
growth upon the upper lip, and for the pale cheek of ill-health. 
The same large forehead overhanging the face, eyes sunken, but 
as bright as his sister’s, the same sensitive lips were his. A finer 
face than his sister’s, and stronger, but not so sweet. Beside 
his chair a pair of crutches proclaimed that he was a cripple. 
Before him was a table, at which he was writing. There were 
on the table, besides his writing materials, a number of little 
dolls, some of which were arranged in groups, while others 
were lying about unused. He was copying his finished play ; 
as he copied it he played the scenes with the dolls and spoke 


198 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


the dialogue. The dolls were his characters ; there was not a 
single scene or change of the grouping which this conscientious 
young dramatist had not rehearsed over and over again, until 
every line of the dialogue had its own stage-picture clear and 
distinct in his mind. 

“ You are Mr. Feilding?” he asked, rising with some difficulty. 
“ I have heard so much of you from Effie. It is a great honor 
to have a call from you.” 

“ I take a deep interest,” the great man replied, “ in anything 
that concerns Miss Effie Wilmot. I have been able — I believe 
you know — to give her some assistance and advice in her work. 
Oh !” — he waved his hand to deprecate any expressions of grati- 
tude — “ I have done very little — very little indeed. Now, about 
yourself. I learn from your sister that you have ambitions — 
you would become a dramatist ?” 

“ I have no other ambition. It is my only dream.” 

“A very good dream, indeed. And you have made, I am 
told, a start — a maiden effort — a preliminary flight to try your 
wings. You have written your first attempt at a play ?” 

“ Yes. It is here. It is finished.” 

“ Tell me, briefly, the plot.” 

Some young dramatists mar their plot in getting it out. This 
young man had taken the trouble to write out first a rough out- 
line of his piece and next a complete scenario with every situa- 
tion detailed. These he read to his visitor one after the other. 

“Yes,” said Mr. Feilding, when he had finished; “there is 
something in the idea of the play. Perhaps not a completely 
novel motif. A good deal might be said as to the arrangement 
of the scenes. And one or two of the characters might — but 
these are details. Remains to find out how the dialogue goes. 
Will you read me a scene or two?” 

The dramatist read. As he read he might have observed in 
the eyes of his listener a growing eagerness, as of one who vehe- 
mently yearns to get possession of something — his neighbor’s 
vineyard, for example, or his solitary ewe lamb. But the reader 
did not observe this. He was wholly wrapped in his piece ; he 
threw his soul into the reading ; he was anxious only that his 
words and his situations should produce the best effect upon his 
hearer. 

“ Yes, yes ; your dialogue, unhappily, shows the want of skill 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


199 


common to the beginner,” said Mr. Feilding, when he had fin- 
ished. “ It will have to he completely rewritten. As it stands 
now, the play would be simply killed by it, in spite of the situa- 
tions, which, with some alterations, are really pretty good — 
pretty good for a first effort.” 

“You don’t think, then — that — ” The dramatist’s voice 
broke down. Consider. For two long years he had done noth- 
ing but cast, recast, write, rewrite this play. He had dreamed 
all this time of success with this play. And now — now — the 
very first critic — and that the most accomplished man of the 
day — no less than Mr. Alec Feilding — told him that the play 
would not be received unless the dialogue was entirely rewrit- 
ten. He could not rewrite the dialogue. It was a part of him- 
self. As well ask him to remake his own face or to reconstruct 
his legs. His face fell ; his cheeks grew pale ; his eyes filled 
with unmanly tears. 

“ I am truly sorry, believe me,” said the critic, “ to throw cold 
water on your hopes. I have been myself an aspirant. Yet” — 
he hesitated in his kindliness — “ why encourage illusive expec- 
tations ? The play as it is — I say, as it is only — must be pro- 
nounced totally unfit for the stage. No manager would think 
of it for a moment.” 

“ Then I may as well throw it on the fire ? And all my work 
wasted !” 

“ Nay — not wasted. Good work — true work — is never wast- 
ed. You ought to have learned much — very much — from this 
two years’ labor. And, as for putting it into the fire” — he 
laughed genially — “ I believe I can show you a better way than 
that. Look here, Archie — I call you by your Christian name 
because I have so often talked about you ; we are old friends — 
I should be really sorry to think that you had actually lost all 
your time. Give me this play ; I will take it — skeleton, scenario, 
dialogue — all, just as it is— the mere rough, crude, shapeless 
thing that it is. I will buy it of you — useless as it is. I will 
give you fifty pounds down for it, and it shall become my prop- 
erty — m y own, absolutely. I shall then, perhaps, recast and re- 
write the play from beginning to end. When I have made a 
play out of it worth putting on the stage — when, in short, I have 
made it my own play — I may possibly bring it out — possibly. 
Most likely, however, not. There’s a chance for you, Archie, 


200 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


such as you will never get again ! Fifty pounds down — think 
of that ! Fifty pounds !” 

The dramatist laid his hand, for reply, upon his papers. 

“ If it should ever be brought out,” this good Samaritan went 
on, u you will come and see it acted. What a splendid lesson 
it will be for you in the art of writing drama !” 

The dramatist’s fingers tightened on his manuscript. 

“ Of course you must consider your sister,” the considerate 
critic continued. “ She has been able to make a few pounds of 
late, having been so fortunate as to attract the interest of . . . 
one who is not wholly without influence. Should that interest 
fail or be withdrawn you might have — both of you — to suffer 
much privation. The luxuries which you now enjoy would be 
impossible — and — ” 

“ Oh, you kill me !” cried the unfortunate youth. 

“ Shall I leave you for the present ? My offer is always open 
— on the condition of secrecy — one is bound to keep business 
transactions secret. I will leave you now. There is no hurry. 
Think it over carefully and send me an answer.” 

He went out and shut the door. The young dramatist, I am 
ashamed to say, fell to tears and weeping over the destruction 
of his hopes. 

“ Effie,” said Mr. Feilding, “ I have talked with your brother. 
He has read some of the play to me — ” 

“ And you think — ?” she asked him eagerly. 

He shook his head mournfully. “ The boy has much to learn 
— very much. Meantime, the play itself is worthless — quite 
worthless.” 

“ Oh ! Poor boy ! And he has built so much upon it.” 

“ Yes — they all do at the outset. Mind, Effie, he is a clever 
boy ; he will do. Meantime, he must study.” 

“ Oh ! Poor Archie ! Poor boy !” 

“ It seems hard, doesn’t it, not to succeed all at once ? Yet 
Browning and Tennyson and Thackeray were all well on for 
forty before they succeeded. Why should he despair ? Mean- 
time I have made him a little offer.” 

“ Oh ! Mr. Feilding, you are always so good.” 

“ I have offered to give him fifty pounds — down — and to take 
this rough unlicked thing he calls a play. If I find time I shall, 
perhaps, rewrite the whole, and put it on the stage. It will then, 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


201 


of course, be my own — my own, Effie. Good-bye, child. I have 
not forgotten our talk — or my promise — if we remain on friendly 
relations.” 

He went away. Effie sank into a chair. What she had done 
with her own work had never seemed to her half so terrible as 
what was now proposed to be done with her brother’s work. 

She crept into his room. He sat with his head in his hands, 
most mournful of bards since the world began. 

“ Archie, I know — I know ; he has told me. Oh ! Archie — 
do you think it is true ?” 

“ He says so, Effie. He says it is worthless.” 

“ Yet he will give you fifty pounds.” 

“ That is to please you — for your sake. The thing is worth- 
less — no manager would look at it.” 

“Yet — fifty pounds! Why should Mr. Feilding give fifty 
pounds — a whole fifty pounds — for a worthless play? Archie, 
don’t do it — don’t let him have it; wait a little — we will ask 
somebody else. Oh ! I could tell you something. Wait — tell 
him, if you must say anything, that you will think it over.” 

When Effie turned over the pages of the next number of The 
Muses Nine, she found, first of all, her own verses in the editor’s 
column with his name at the bottom. This sight, which had 
formerly made her so proud, now filled her with shame. The 
generous promise of the future failed to awaken in her any glow 
of hope. For the very words with which her only editor had 
beguiled her of her verses — the plea that they were worthless, 
and must be rewritten — he had used to her brother. And as 
her poems had never been rewritten, so would Archie’s play, she 
felt sure, be presented without a single alteration, with the name 
of Mr. Alec Feilding as author. That week she took no verses 
to the studio-study. 

And a certain paragraph in the same columns perused by this 
suspicious young woman brought rage — nothing short of rage — 
into her heart. No ! not her brother, as well as herself ! It ran 
thus : “ I have always been under the impression that the dearth 
of good plays is due to nothing else in the world than the fact 
that the good men who ought to be writing them all run off into 
the domain of fiction. It is a pleasant country — that of Fable 
Land. I have been there, and I hope to go there again and 
make a long stay. But Play Land — that is also a pleasant coun- 


202 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


try. I have been there lately, and I hope to demonstrate that a 
good play may still be produced in the English tongue — a good 
and original play. In short, I have written a romantic drama, 
of which all I can say at present is that it lies finished, in my 
fireproof safe, and that a certain actor-manager will probably 
play the title-role before many moons have waxed and waned.” 

“ No,” said Effie, crumpling up the paper. “ You have not 
got Archie’s romantic drama yet.” 


CHAPTER VIII. 

ALL ABOUT MYSELF. 

“ You have kept this promise, then.” Armorel welcomed her 
old friend with eyes of kindness and lips of smiles. “ Do you 
ever think of the promise that you broke ? Effie, dear ” — this 
young lady was the only other occupant of the room — “ this is 
Mr. Roland Lee, my first friend and my first master. He knew 
me long ago, in Samson, in the days of which I have told you. 
We have memories of our own — memories such as make the old 
friendships impossible to be dissolved — whatever happens. Rol- 
and, you first put a pencil into my hand and taught me how to 
use it. In return, I used to play old-fashioned tunes in the even- 
ing. And you first put thoughts into my head. Before you 
came my head was filled with phantoms, which had neither voice 
nor shape. What am I to do now in return for such a gift?” 
She gave him both her hands, and her face was so glowing, her 
eyes so soft yet serious withal, her voice so full of tenderness, 
that the luckless painter stood confused and overwhelmed. How 
had he deserved such a reception ? 

“ This evening,” she went on, “ we are going to talk about no- 
body but myself, and about nothing but my own affairs. Effie, 
you will be horribly bored. It is five years since I had such a 
chance. Because, my dear, though you have the best will in the 
world, and would talk to me about old times if you could, you 
did not know me when I lived on Samson in the Scilly Islands 
— and Roland did. That is, if he still remembers Samson.” 

“ I remember every day on Samson ; every blade of grass on 
the island ; every boulder and every crag.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


203 


“ And every talk we had in those days ? — all the things yon 
told me ?” 

“ I remember, as well, a girl who has so changed, so grown — ” 

“ So much the better. Then we can talk just as we used to 
do. But I thought you would somehow remember the girl, 
Roland.” She looked up again, smiling. Then she hesitated, 
and went on slowly : “ Yet I was afraid, this morning, that you 
might have forgotten one of the two who wandered about the 
island together.” 

“ I could never forget you, Armorel.” 

“ I meant — the other — Roland.” 

He made no reply. In his evening dress — which was full of 
creases, as if it had not been put on for a very long time — he 
looked a little less forlorn than in the shabby old brown-velvet 
jacket ; he had brushed his hair — nay, he had even had it cut 
and trimmed ; but there still hung about him the look of waste ; 
his eyes were melancholy ; his bearing was dejected ; he spoke 
with hesitation ; he was even shy, like a schoolboy. Effie noted 
these things, and wondered. And she observed, besides, not 
only that his coat was creased, but that his shirt was frayed at 
the cuffs and torn in the front. In fact, the young man, in 
dropping out of society, had, as a natural consequence, neg- 
lected his wardrobe and allowed his linen to run to seed unre- 
buked. Every man who has been a bachelor — most of us have 
— remembers how shirts behave when the eye of the master is 
once taken off them. 

He was shy because the atmosphere of the drawing-room, so 
dainty, so luxurious, so womanly, was strange to him. Three 
years and more had passed since he had been in such a room. 
He was also shy because this splendid creature, this girl dressed 
in silk and lovely lace, this miracle of girls, called herself Ar- 
morel, his once simple rustic maid of Samson Isle. Further, 
he was ashamed because this girl remembered him as he was 
in the good old days, when his face was turned to the summit 
of the mountain and his feet were on the upward slope. 

Armorel had placed on the table a portfolio full of drawings. 

“ Now for myself,” she said, gayly. “ Roland, you are an 
artist. You must look at my drawings. Here are the best I 
have done. I have had many masters since you, but none that 
taught me so much in so short a time. Do you remember when 


204 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


you first found out that I could hold a pencil? You were very 
patient then, master. Be lenient now.” 

“ I had a very apt pupil,” he began, turning over the draw- 
ings. “ These need no leniency. These are very good indeed. 
Have you had other and better masters.” 

“ I have had other masters, it is true. I have done my best, 
Roland — to grow.” 

He dropped his eyes. But he continued to turn over the 
sketches. The drawings showed, at least, that natural aptitude 
which may be genius and may be that imitation of genius which 
is difficult to distinguish from the real gift. Many painters 
with no more natural aptitude than Armorel have risen to be 
Royal Academicians. 

“ But these are very good, indeed,” Roland repeated, with 
emphasis. “ You have, indeed, worked well, and you have the 
true feeling.” 

“ Do you remember, Roland, that day when we talked about 
the Perfect Woman? No, I see by your eyes that you have 
forgotten. But I remember. I will not tell you all. One 
thing she had done ; she had trained her eye and her hand. 
She knew what was good in art, and was not carried away by 
any follies or fashions. I did not understand then what you 
meant by follies and fashions. But I am wiser now. I have 
been training eye and hand. I think I know a good picture, 
or a good statue, or a good work in any art. Do not think me 
conceited, master. I have been obedient to your instructions — 
that is all.” 

“You have the soul of an artist, Armorel,” said her master. 
“ But yet — I fear — I think — you have missed the supreme gift. 
You are not a great artist.” 

“ No, I can grow no higher in painting. I have learned my 
own limitations. If it is only to understand and to worship the 
great masters it is worth while to get so far. Are you satisfied 
with your pupil ?” 

For a moment the old look came back to Roland’s eyes. 
“ You are the best of pupils,” he said. “ But I might have 
expected so much. Tell me how you succeeded in getting 
away from Samson ?” 

She told him, briefly, how the ancient lady died, how she 
found the family treasure, and how she had resolved to go away 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


205 


and learn; how she found masters and guardians; how she 
lived in Florence, Dresden, Paris ; how she worked unceasingly. 
“ I remembered, always, Roland, your picture of the Perfect 
Woman.” 

“ Could I — I — have told you things that have made you — 
what you are ?” It seemed as if another man had given the 
girl this excellent advice. Not himself — quite another man. 

“ Effie, dear,” Armorel turned to her, “ you do not under- 
stand. I must tell you. Five years ago, when I lived on Sam- 
son, a girl so ignorant that it makes me tremble to think what 
might have happened — there came to the island a young gentle- 
man who was so kind as to take this ignorant girl — me — in 
hand, and to fill her empty head with all kinds of great and 
noble thoughts. He was an artist by profession. Oh ! an 
artist filled with ardor and with ambition. He would be satis- 
fied with nothing short of the best ; he taught me that none of 
us ought to be satified till we have attained our full stature, and 
grown as tall as we possibly can. It made that ignorant girl’s 
heart glow only to hear him talk, because she had never heard 
such talk before. Then he left her, and came back no more. 
But presently the chance came to this girl, as you have heard, 
and she was able to leave the island and go where she could find 
masters and teachers. It is five years ago. And always, every 
day, Roland ” — her lip quivered — “ I have said to myself, ‘ My 
first master is growing taller — taller — taller — every day — I must 
grow as tall as I can, or else when I meet him again I shall be 
too insignificant for him to notice.’ Always I have thought 
how I should meet him again. So tall, so great, so wonderful !” 

Effie remarked that while Armorel addressed Roland she did 
not look at him until the last words, when she turned and faced 
him with eyes running over. The man’s head dropped; his 
fingers played with the drawings ; he made no reply. 

“ In the evening,” Armorel went on, “ we used to have music. 
I played only the old-fashioned tunes then that Justinian Tryeth 
taught me — do you remember the tunes, Roland ? I will play 
one for you again.” She took a violin out of the case and 
began to tune the strings. “ This is my old fiddle. It has been 
Justinian’s — and his father’s before him. I have had other in- 
struments since then, but I love the old fiddle best.” She drew 
her bow across the strings. “ I can play much better now, 


206 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


Roland. And I have much better music ; but I will play only 
the old tunes, because I want you to remember quite clearly 
those two who walked and talked and sailed together. It is 
so easy for you to forget that young man. But I remember 
him very well indeed.” She drew the bow across the strings 
again. “ Now we are in the old room, while the old people are 
sitting round the fire. Effie, dear, put the shade over the lamp 
and turn it low — so — now we are all sitting in the firelight, just 
as it used to be on Samson — see the red light dancing about 
the walls. It fills your eyes and makes them glow, Roland. 
Oh ! we are back again. What are you thinking of, artist, while 
the music falls upon your ears ? while I play — what shall I play ? 
1 Dissembling Love,’ which others call 1 The Lost Heart’ ?” She 
played it with the old spirit, but far more than the old delicacy 
and feeling. “ You remember that, Roland? Do you hear the 
lapping of the waves in Porth Bay and the breakers over Shark 
Point ? Or is it too rustic a ditty. I will play you something 
better, but still the old tunes.” She played first “ Prince Ru- 
pert’s March,” and then “The Saraband” — great and lofty airs 
to one who can play them greatly. While she played Effie 
watched. In Armorel’s eyes she read a purpose. This was no 
mere play. The man she called her master listened, sitting at 
the table, the sketches spread out before him, ill at ease, and 
as one in a troubled dream. 

“ Do you see him again, that young man ?” Armorel asked. 
“ It makes one happy only to think of such a young man. He 
knew the dangers before him. 4 The Way of Wealth,’ he said 
once , 4 and the Way of Pleasure draw men as if with ropes.’ But 
he was so strong and steadfast. Nothing would turn him from 
his way. Not pleasure, nor wealth, not anything mean or low. 
There was never any young man so noble. Oh ! Do you remem- 
ber him, Roland ? Tell me — tell me — Do you remember him ?” 

Over the pictures on the table he bowed his head. But he 
made no reply. Then Effie, watching the glittering fears in 
Armorel’s eyes and the bowed head of the man, stole softly out 
of the room and closed the door. 

Armorel put down her fiddle. She drew nearer to the man. 
His head sank lower. She stood over him, tall and queenly, as 
the Muse stood over Alfred de Musset. She laid her hand upon 
his shoulder. 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


20V 


“ That old spirit is not dead, but sleeping, Roland. You have 
not driven it forth. It is your own still. You have only si- 
lenced its voice for a while. You think that you have killed it ; 
but you remember it still. Thank God ! it has been only sleep- 
ing. If it were dead you would not remember. Let it w T ake 
again. Oh ! Roland, let it wake again, again. Oh ! Roland, 
Roland, my friend and master — ” She could say no more. 

The man raised his head. It is a shameful and a terrible 
thing to see the face of a man who is disgraced and conscious 
of his shame. Perhaps it is worse to see the face of a man who 
is disgraced and is unconscious of his shame. He looked round, 
and saw the tears in the girl’s eyes and the quivering of her lips. 

“ The man you remember,” he said, hoarsely, “ is dead and 
buried. He died three years ago and more. Another man — a 
poor and mean creature — walks about in his shape. He is un- 
worthy to be in your presence. Suffer him to go, and think of 
him no longer.” 

“ Not another man, because you remember the former. Rol- 
and, come back, my old friend ; come back !” 

“ It is too late.” But he wavered. 

“ It is never too late. “ Oh ! I wonder — was it the Way of 
Pleasure or was it the Way of Wealth?” 

“ Do I look,” he asked, bitterly, “ as if it were the Way of 
Pleasure ?” 

“ It is not too late, Roland. You have sinned against your- 
self. If it were too late you would be happy after the kind of 
those who can live in sin and be happy. Since you are not 
happy, it is not too late. The doors of heaven stand open 
night and day for all.” 

“You talk the old language, Armorel.” 

“ It is the language of my soul. I will say the same thing 
in any tongue you please, so that you understand me.” 

“ To go back — to begin all over again — to go on as if the last 
three years had never been — ” 

“ Yes, yes ; as if they had never been ! That is best. As if 
they had never been.” 

“Armorel, do you know,” he asked her, quickly, “do you 
know the thing — the awful thing — that I have done ?” 

“ Do not tell me. Never tell me.” 

“ Some day I think I must. What shall I say now ?” 


208 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ Say that your footsteps are turned in the old way, Roland.” 

He pushed back the chair and stood up. Now, if they had 
been measured, he would have proved four inches and a half 
taller than the girl, for he was half an inch short of six feet, 
and she was exactly five feet seven. Yet as they stood face to 
face, it seemed to him, and to her as well, as if she towered 
over him by as many inches as separate the tallest woman from 
the smallest man. Nature thus accommodates herself to the 
mental condition of the moment. 

The small man, however, did a very strange thing. He drew 
forth a pocket-book and took from it what Armorel perceived 
to be a check. This he deliberately tore across twice, and threw 
the fragments into the fire. 

“ You do not understand this act, Armorel. It is the turn- 
ing of the footstep.” 

She took his hand and pressed it. “ I pray,” she said, “ that 
the way may prove less thorny than you think !” 

Nature, again accommodating herself, caused the small, mean 
man to grow suddenly several inches. There was still a goodly 
difference between the two, but it was lessened. More than 
that, the man continued to grow, and his face was brighter, and 
his eyes less haggard. 

“ I will go now, Armorel,” he said. 

“ You will come again, soon?” 

“ Not yet. I will come again when the shame of the present 
belongs to the past.” 

“ No. You shall come often. But of the past or present we 
will speak no more. Tell me, in your own good time, Roland, 
how you fare. But do not desert your old pupil. Come to 
see me often.” 

He bowed his head and went away. 

“ Effie,” said Armorel, “ I cannot tell you what all this means.” 

“It means a man who has fallen,” said the girl, wise with 
poetic instinct. “ Any one could see failure and shame written 
on his face. It ought to be a noble face, but something has 
gone out of it. You knew him long ago — when he was differ- 
ent — and you tried to bring him to his old self. Oh ! Armorel 
— you are wonderful — you were his better spirit — you were his 
muse — calling him back.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


209 


She laid her hand in Armorel’s. They stood together in 
silence. Then Armorel spoke. 

u I feared it was quite another man — a new man — a stranger 
that I had found, but it was not. It was the same man after 
all.” 

Effie stooped and picked up a fragment of paper lying on the 
hearth. “ Mr. Feilding’s signature,” she said, unthinking. At 
times, when one is moved, trifles sometimes seem to acquire 
importance. 

“ That ? It is part of a check which he tore up. Effie, dear, 
it was good of you to go away and leave us when you did. 
Perhaps he would not have spoken so freely if you had been 
here. Oh ! he is the same man, after all. He has come back 
to me. Effie, tell me ; but you know no more than I. If you 
once loved a man, and if you suffered the thought of him to lie 
in your heart for years, and if you filled him with all the virtues 
that there are, and if he grew in your heart to be a knight per- 
fect at all points — ” 

“ Well, Armorel ?” For she stopped, and Effie took her hand. 

“ Oh, Effie !” she replied, with glowing cheeks ; “ could you 
ever arterwards love another man? Could you ever cease to 
love that man of your imagination ? Could any meaner man 
content you ? For my part — never ! — never ! — never !” 


CHAPTER IX. 

TO MAKE HIM HAPPY. 

“ Shall we discuss Mr. Feilding any longer ?” Armorel asked, 
with a little impatience. “ It really seems as if we had nothing 
to talk about but the perfections of this incomparable person.” 
It was in the evening. Armorel had discovered, already, that 
the evenings spent at home in the society of her companion 
were both long and dull ; that they had nothing to talk about ; 
that Zoe regarded every single subject from a point of view 
which was not her own ; and that both in conversation and in 
personal intercourse she was having a great deal more than she 
desired of Mr. Alec Feilding. Therefore, she was naturally a 
little impatient. One cannot every evening go and sit alone in 


210 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


the study ; one cannot play the violin all the evening ; and one 
cannot reduce a companion to absolute silence. 

Zoe, who had been talking into the fire from her cushions, 
turned her fluffy head, opened her blue eyes wide, and looked, 
not reproachfully, but sorrowfully and with wonder, at a girl 
who could hear too much about Alec Feilding. 

“Let me talk — just a little — sometimes — of my best friend, 
Armorel, dear. If you only knew what Alec has been to me 
and to my lost lover — my Jerome !” 

“ Forgive me, Zoe. Go on talking about him.” 

“ How quiet and cosy,” she murmured, in reply, “ this room 
is in the evening '• It makes one feel virtuous only to think of 
the cold wind and the cold people outside. This heaven is 
surely a reward for the righteous. It is enough only to lie in 
the warmth without talking. But the time and the place invite 
confidences. Armorel, I am going to repose a great confidence 
in you — a secret plan of my own. And you are so very, very 
sympathetic, when you please, dear child — especially when Effie 
is here — I wonder if she is worth it ? — that you might spare me 
a little of your sympathy.” 

“ My dear Zoe ” — Armorel felt a touch of remorse — she had 
been unsympathetic — “you shall have all there is to spare. 
But what kind of sympathy do you want ? You were talking 
of Mr. Feilding — not of yourself.” 

“ Yes — and that is of myself in a way. I know you will not 
misunderstand me, dear. You will not imagine that I am — 
well, in love with Alec, when I confess to you that I think a 
very great deal about him.” 

“ I never thought so, at all,” said Armorel. 

Zoe’s eyes opened for a moment and gleamed. It was a 
doubtful saying. Why should not she be in love with Alec, or 
Alec with her ? But Armorel knew nothing about love. 

“ When a woman has loved once, dear,” she murmured, “ her 
heart is gone. My love-passages,” she put her handkerchief to 
her eyes — to some women the drawing-room is the stage — “ my 
love-story, dear, is finished and done. My heart is in the grave 
with Jerome. But this you cannot understand. I think so 
much of Alec — first, because he has been all goodness to me ; 
and, next, because he is so wonderfully clever.” 

“ Talk about him, Zoe, as long as you please.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


211 


“ If he had been an ordinary man,” she went on, “ I should 
have been equally grateful, I suppose. But there it would have 
ended. To be under a debt of gratitude to such a man as Alec 
makes one long to do something in return. And, besides, there 
are so very, very few good men in the world that it does one 
good only to talk about them.” 

“ I suppose that Mr. Feilding is really a man of great genius,” 
said Armorel. “ I confess he seems to me rather ponderous in 
his talk — may I say, dull ? From genius one expects the unex- 
pected.” 

“ Dull ? Oh, no ! A little constrained in his manner. That 
comes from his excessive sensibility. But dull ? — oh, no !” 

“ He seemed dull at the theatre last night.” 

“It was a curious coincidence meeting him there, was it 
not ?” 

“ I thought you must have told him that you w r ere going.” 

“ No, no ; quite a coincidence. And he so seldom goes to a 
theatre. The badness of the acting, he says, irritates his nerves 
to such a degree that it sometimes spoils his work for a week. 
And yet he is actually going to bring out a play himself. There 
is a paragraph in the paper about it — his own paper. Give it 
to me, dear; it is on the sofa. Thank you.” She read the 
paragraph, which we already know. “ What do you think of 
that, Armorel ?” 

“ Isn’t it rather arrogant — about good men turning out good 
work?” 

“ My dear, genius can afford to be arrogant. True genius is 
always impatient of small people and of stupidities. It suffers 
its contempt to be seen, and that makes the stupidities cry out 
about arrogance. Even the most stupid can cry out, you see. 
But think. He is going to add a new wreath to his brow. He 
is already known as a poet, a novelist, a painter, an essayist, and 
now he is to become a dramatist. He really is the cleverest 
man in the whole world.” 

Armorel expressed none of the admiration that was expected. 
She was wondering whether, if Mr. Feilding had not been quite 
so clever, he might not have been quite so heavy and didactic 
in conversation. Less clever people, perhaps, are more prodigal 
of their cleverness, and give away some of it in conversation. 
Perhaps the very clever want it all for their books. 


212 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ I said I would give you his poems,” Zoe continued. “ I 
bought the hook for you — the second series, which is better 
than the first. It is on the piano, dear — that little parcel ; thank 
you.” She opened the parcel and disclosed a dainty little vol- 
ume in white and gold. It was illustrated by a small etching 
of the poet’s head for a frontispiece. It was printed in beauti- 
ful new type on thick paper — the kind called hand-made — the 
edges left ragged. There were about a hundred and twenty 
pages, and on every two pages there was a single poem. These 
were not arranged in any order or sequence of thought. They 
were all separate. The poet showed knowledge of contempo- 
rary manners in serving up so small a dish of verse. Fifty or 
sixty short poems is quite as much as the reader of poetry will 
stand in these days. 

Armorel turned over the pages and began to read them. 
Strange ! How could a man so ponderous, so pompous in his 
conceit, so dogmatic, so self-conscious, write such pretty, easy- 
flowing numbers ? The metres fitted the subject ; the rhymes 
were apt, the cadence true, the verses tripped light and graceful 
like a maiden dancing. 

“ How could such a man,” she cried, “ get a touch so light ? 
It is truly wonderful.” 

“ I told you so, dear. He is altogether wonderful.” 

She went on reading. Presently she cried out, “ Why ! he 
writes like a woman. Only a woman could have written these 
lines.” She read them out. “ It is a woman’s hand, and a 
woman’s way of thinking.” 

“ That shows his genius. No one except Alec — or a woman 
— could have said just that thing in just that manner.” 

Armorel closed the volume. “ I think,” she said, “ that I 
like a man to write like a man and a woman like a woman.” 

“ Then,” said Zoe, “ how is a novelist to make a woman talk ?” 

“ He makes his women talk like women if he can. But when 
he speaks himself it must be with the voice of a man. In 
these poems it is the poet who speaks, not any character, man 
or woman.” 

“You will like the poems better as you read them. They 
will grow upon you. And you will find the poet himself — not 
a woman, but a man — in his verses. It helps one so much to 
understand the verses when you know the poet. I think I 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


213 


could almost understand Browning if I liad ever known him. 
Think of Alec when you read his verses.” 

“ Yes,” said Armorel, still without enthusiasm. 

“You said we were talking about nothing else, dear,” Zoe 
went on. “ I talk so much of him because I respect and revere 
him so much. I have known Alec a long time ” — she lay back 
with her head turned from her companion, talking softly into 
the fire, as if she were communing with herself. “ He is, though 
you do not understand it yet, a man of the most highly strung 
and sensitive nature. The true reason why he talks ponder- 
ously — as you call it, Armorel — is that he is conscious of the 
traps into which this very sensitiveness of his may lead him; 
for instance, he may say, before persons unworthy of his confi- 
dence, things which they would most likely misunderstand. It 
is simply wicked to cast pearls before swine. A poet, more 
than any other man, must be quite sure of his audience be- 
fore he gives himself away. I assure you, when Alec feels him- 
self alone with his intimates — a very little circle — his talk is 
brilliant.” 

“ We are unlucky, then,” said Armorel, still without enthu- 
siasm. 

“Another thing may make him seem dull. He is always 
preoccupied, always thinking about his work ; his mind is over- 
charged.” 

“ I thought he was always in society — a great diner-out ?” 

“ He is. Society brings him relief. The inanities of social 
intercourse rest his brain. Without this rest he would be 
crushed.” 

“ I see,” said Armorel, coldly. 

“Then there is that other side of him — of which you know 
nothing. My dear, he is constantly thinking of others. His 
private life — but I must not tell too much. Not only the clev- 
erest man in London, but the best.” 

Armorel felt guilty. She had not, hitherto, looked upon this 
phoenix with the reverence which was due to so great a creat- 
ure. Nay, she did not like him. She was repelled rather than 
attracted by him. She liked him less every time she met him. 
And this was oftener than she desired. Somehow or other, 
they were always meeting. On some pretext or other he was 
always calling. And certainly for the last few days Zoe was 


214 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


unable to talk about anything else. The genius, the greatness 
of this man seemed to overwhelm her. 

“ And now, my dear,” she went on, still talking about him, 
“ for my little confidences. I have a great scheme in my head. 
Oh ! a very great scheme indeed.” She turned round and sat 
up, looking Armorel full in the face. Her eyes under her flulfy 
hair were large and luminous when she lifted them. Oftener 
they were large but sleepy eyes. Now they were quite bright. 
She was wide-awake and she was in earnest. “ I have spoken to 
no one but you about it as yet. Perhaps you and I can manage 
it all by ourselves.” 

“What is it?” . 

“ You and I, dear, you and I, we two — we can be so asso- 
ciated and bound up in the life of the poet-painter as to be for- 
ever joined with his name. Petrarch and Laura are not more 
closely connected than we may be with Alec Feilding, if you 
only join with me.” 

“ First tell me what it is — this plan of yours.” 

“ It is nothing less than just to relieve him, once for all, from 
his business cares.” 

“ Has he business cares ?” 

“They take up his precious time. They weigh upon his 
mind. Why should such a man have any business at all to 
look after ?” 

“ Well, but,” said Armorel, refusing to rise to this tempting 
bait, “why does such a man allow himself to have business 
cares, if they worry him ?” 

“ It is the conduct of his journal, my dear.” 

“But other authors and painters do not conduct journals. 
Why should he ? I believe that successful writers and artists 
make very large incomes. If he is so successful, why does he 
trouble about managing a paper? That is certainly work that 
can be done by a man of inferior brain.” 

“ You are so matter-of-fact, dear. The paper is his own, and 
he thinks, I suppose, that nobody but himself could edit the 
thing. Leave poor Alec one or two human weaknesses. lie 
may think this, and yet make no allowance for his own shrink- 
ing and sensitive nature.” 

Certainly Armorel had seen no indications in this poet-painter 
of the shrinking nature. It was very carefully concealed. 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


215 


“ Of course,” Zoe continued, “ you hardly know him. But 
his genius you do know. And the business worries that are 
inseparable from a journal are a serious hindrance to his higher 
work. Believe me, dear, even if you do not understand why it 
should be so.” 

“I can very well believe it — I only ask why Mr. Feilding 
alone, among authors and painters, should hamper himself with 
such worries.” 

“ Well, dear — there they are. And I have formed a plan — 
Oh !” — she clasped her hands and opened her eyes wide — “such 
a plan ! The best and the cleverest plan in the world for the 
best and the cleverest man in the world ! But I want your help.” 

“ What can I do ?” 

“ I will tell you. First of all, you must remember that Alec 
is the sole proprietor, as well as the editor of this journal — The 
Muses Nine. It is his property. He created it. But the busi- 
ness management of the paper worries him. My plan, Armorel 
— my plan ” — she spoke and looked most impressive — “ will re- 
lieve him altogether of the work.” 

“ Yes — and how do I come into your plan ?” 

“ This way. I have found out, through a person of business, 
that if he would sell a share — say a quarter, or an eighth — of 
his paper he would be able to put the business part of it into 
paid hands — the people who do nothing else. Now, Armorel, 
we will buy that share — you and I between us will buy it. You 
shall advance the whole of the money, and I will pay you back 
half. The price will be nothing to you — that is, it will be a 
great deal, because the investment will be such a splendid thing, 
and the returns will be so brilliant. You will increase your in- 
come enormously, and you will have the satisfaction” — she 
paused, because, though she was herself more animated, earnest, 
and eloquent with voice and eyes, and though she threw so 
much persuasion into her manner, the tell-tale face of the girl 
showed no kindling light of response at all — “ the satisfaction,” 
she continued, “ of feeling that such a help to literature and art 
will make us both immortal.” 

Armorel made no reply. She was considering the proposition 
coldly, and it was one of those things which must be considered 
without enthusiasm. 

“ As for money,” Zoe continued, with one more attempt to 


216 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


awaken a responsive fire, “ I have found out what will be wanted. 
For three thousand five hundred pounds we can get this share 
in the paper. Only three thousand five hundred pounds ! That 
is no more than one thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds 
apiece ! I shall insist upon having my share in the investment, 
because I should grudge you the whole of the work. As for 
the returns, I have been well advised of that. Of course, Alec 
is beyond all paltry desire for gain, and he might ask a great 
deal more. But he leaves everything to his advisers — and oh ! 
my dear, he must on no account know — yet — who is doing this 
for him. Afterwards we will break it to him gradually, per- 
haps, when he has quite recovered from the worries and is 
rested. If we think of returns, ten, twenty, even fifty per cent, 
may be expected as the paper gets on. Think of fifty per 
cent. !” 

“ No,” said Armorel. “ Let us, too, be above paltry desire for 
gain. Let those who do want more money go in for this busi- 
ness. If your advice is correct, Mr. Feilding can have no diffi- 
culty at all in selling a share of the paper. People who want 
more money will be only too eager to buy it.” 

“ My dear child, everybody wants more money.” 

“ I have quite enough. But why do you ask me to join you, 
Zoe ? I do not know Mr. Feilding, except as an acquaintance. 
He is, I dare say, all that you think. But I do not find him per- 
sonally interesting. And there is no reason why I should pre- 
tend to be one of the train who follow him and admire him.” 

“ But I want you — I want you, Armorel.” Zoe clasped her 
hands and lifted her eyes, humid now. But a woman’s eyes 
move a girl less than a man. “ I want you, and none but you, 
to join me in this. We two alone will do it. It will be such a 
splendid thing to do ! Nothing short of the rescue of the finest 
and most poetic mind of the day from sordid cares and worries. 
Think of what future ages will say of you !” 

Armorel laughed. “ Indeed !” she said. “ This kind of im- 
mortality does not tempt me very much. But, Zoe, it is really 
useless to urge me. I could not do this if I would. And truly 
I would not if I could ; for I made a promise to Mr. Jagenal, 
when I came of age the other day, that I would not lend or part 
with any money without taking his advice ; and that I would 
not change any of his investments without consulting him. I 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


217 


seem to know beforehand what he would say if I consulted him 
about this proposal.” 

“ Then, my dear,” said Zoe, lying back in her cushions and 
turning her face to the fire, “ let us talk about the matter no 
more.” 

She had failed. From the outset she felt that she was going 
to fail. The man had had every chance. He had met the girl 
constantly ; she had left him alone with her ; but he had not 
attracted her in the least. Well — she confessed, in spite of his 
cleverness, Alec had somewhat of a wooden manner ; he was 
too authoritative ; and Armorel was too independent. She had 
failed. 

Armorel, for her part, remembered how her lawyer had warned 
her on the day when she became twenty-one and of age to man- 
age her own affairs ; all kinds of traps, he told her, are set to 
catch women who have got money in order to rob them of their 
money ; they are besieged on every side, especially on the sides 
presumably the weakest ; she must put on the armor of suspi- 
cion ; she must never — never — never — here he held up a terri- 
fying forefinger — enter into any engagement or promise, verbal 
or in writing, without consulting him. The memory of this 
warning made her uneasy — because it was her own companion, 
the lady appointed by her lawyer himself, who had made the 
first attempt upon her money. True, the attempt was entirely 
disinterested. There would be no gain to Zoe even if she were 
to accede ; the proposal was prompted by the purest friendship. 
And yet she felt uneasy. 

As for the disinterested companion, she wrote a letter that 
very night. She said : “ I have made an attempt to get this 
money for you. It has failed. It was hopeless from the first. 
You have had your chance ; you have been with the girl often 
enough to attract and interest her; yet she is neither attracted 
nor interested. I have given her your poems ; she says they 
ought to be the work of a woman ; she likes the verse, but she 
cares nothing about the poet. Strange ! For my own part, I 
have been foolish enough to love the man, and to care not one 
brass farthing about his work. Your poems — your pictures — 
they all seem to me outside yourself, and not a part of you at 
all. Why it is so I cannot explain. Well, Alec, you planted me 
here, and I remain till you tell me I may go. It is not very 
10 


218 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


lively ; the girl and I have nothing in common ; but it is restful 
and cosy, and I always did like comfort and warmth. And Ar- 
morel pays all the bills. What next, however? Is there any 
other way ? What are my lord’s commands ?” 


CHAPTER X. 

THE SECRET OF THE TWO PICTURES. 

A good many things troubled Armorel — the companion with 
whom she could not talk ; her persistent praises of Mr. Feild- 
ing ; the constant attendance of that illustrious genius — and she 
wanted advice. Generally, she was a self-reliant person, but 
these were new experiences. Effie, she knew, could not advise 
her. She might go to Mr. Jagenal; but, then, elderly lawyers 
are not always ready to receive confidences from young ladies. 
Then she thought of her cousin Philippa, whom she had not 
seen since that first evening. Philippa looked trustworthy and 
judicious. She went to see her in the morning, when she would 
be alone. Philippa received her with the greatest friendliness. 

“ If you really would like a talk about everything,” she said, 
“ come to my own room.” She led-the way. “ Here we shall be 
quiet and undisturbed. It is the place where I practise every day. 
But I shall never be able to play like you, dear. Now, take that 
chair and let us begin. First, why do you come so seldom ?” 

“ Frankly and truly, do you wish me to come often ?” 

“ Frankly and truly, fair cousin, yes. But come alone. Mrs. 
Elstree and I were at school together, and we were not friends. 
That is all. I hope you like her for a companion.” 

“ The first of my difficulties,” said Armorel, “ is that I do not. 
I imagined when she came that it mattered nothing about her. 
You see, I have been for five years under masters and teachers, 
and I never thought anything about them outside the lesson. I 
thought my companion would be only another master. But she 
isn’t. I have her company at breakfast, lunch, and dinner; And 
all the evening. I think I am wrong not to like her, because 
she is always good-tempered. Somehow she jars upon me. 
She likes everything I do not care about — comic operas, dance 
music, French novels. She has no feeling for pictures, and her 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


219 


taste in literature is. . . . Oh, I am talking scandal. And she 
is so perfectly inoffensive. Mostly she lies by the fire and either 
dozes or reads her French novels. All day long, I go about my 
devices. But there is the evening.” 

“ This is rather unfortunate, Armorel, is it not ?” 

“ If it were only for a month or two, one would not mind. 
Tell me, Philippa, how long must I have a companion ?” 

Philippa laughed. “ I dare say the question may solve itself 
before long. Women generally achieve independence — with the 
wedding-ring — unless that brings worse slavery.” 

“ No,” said Armorel, gravely, “ I shall not achieve independ- 
ence that way.” 

“ Not that way ?” 

“ Not by marrying !” 

“ Why not, Armorel ?” 

“You will not laugh at me, Philippa? I learned a long time 
ago that I could only marry one kind of man. And now I can- 
not find him.” 

“ You did know such a man formerly ? My dear, you are not 
going to let a childish passion ruin your own life.” 

“ I knew a man who was, in my mind, this kind of man. He 
came across my life for two or three weeks. When he went 
away I kept his image in my mind, and it gradually grew as I 
g rew — always larger and more beautiful. The more I learned — 
the more splendid grew this image. It was an idol that I set 
up and worshipped for five long years.” 

“ And now your idol is shattered ?” 

“ No ; the idol remains. It is the man who no longer cor- 
responds to the idol. The man who might have become this 
wonderful image is gone — and I can never love any other man. 
He must be my idol in the body.” 

“ But, Armorel, this is unreal. We are not angels. Men and 
women must take each other with their imperfections.” 

“ My idol may have had his imperfections, too. Well, the 
man has gone. I am punished, perhaps, for setting up an idol.” 

She was silent for a while, and Philippa had nothing to say. 

“ But about my companion ?” Armorel went on. “ When can 
I do without one ?” 

“ There is nothing but opinion to consider. Opinion says 
that a young lady must not live alone.” 


220 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ If one never hears what opinion says, one need not consider 
opinion perhaps.” 

“ Well, but you could not go into society alone.” 

“That matters nothing, because I never go into society at all.” 

“ Never go into society at all ? What do you mean ?” 

“ I mean that we go nowhere.” 

“ Well, what are people about ? They call upon you, I sup- 
pose ?” 

“ No ; nobody ever calls. One lady came — a Lady Frances 
something — and said she was a friend of Mr. Feilding.” 

“But where are Mrs. Elstree’s friends?” 

“ She has no friends.” 

“ Oh ! She has — or had — an immense circle of friends.” 

“ That was before her father lost everything and killed himself. 
They were fair-weather friends.” 

“ Yes, but one’s own people don’t run away because of mis- 
fortune.” Philippa looked dissatisfied with the explanation. 
“ My dear cousin, this must be inquired into. Your lawyer 
told me that Mrs. Elstree’s large circle of friends would be of 
such service to you. Do you really mean that you go nowhere ? 
And your wonderful playing absolutely wasted ? And your 
face seen nowhere ? Oh ! it is intolerable that such a girl as 
you should be so neglected.” 

“ I have other friends. There is Effie Wilmot and her brother 
who wants to become a dramatist. And I have found an old 
friend, an artist. I am not at all lonely. But in the evening, I 
confess, it is dull. I am not afraid of being alone. I have al- 
ways been alone. But now I am not alone. I have to talk.” 

“ And uncongenial talk.” 

“ Now advise me, Philippa. Her talk is always on one sub- 
ject — always the wonderful virtues of Mr. Feilding.” 

“ My cousin Alec ? Yes ” — Philippa changed color, and shaded 
her face with a hand-screen. “ I believe she knows him.” 

“ Your cousin ? Oh ! I had forgotten. But all the better be- 
cause you know him. Philippa, I am troubled about him. For 
not only does Zoe talk about him perpetually, but he is always 
calling on one pretext or other. If I go to a picture-gallery, he 

is there ; if I walk in the park, I meet him ; if I go to church 

Zoe does not go — he meets me in the porch ; if we go to the 
theatre, he is there.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


221 


“ I did not think that Alec was that kind of man,” said Philip- 
pa, still keeping the hand-screen before her face. “Are you 
mistaken, perhaps ? Has he said anything ?” 

“ Ho ; he has said nothing. But it annoys me to have this 
man following me about — and — and — Philippa — he is your 
cousin — I know — but I detest him.” 

“ Can you not show that you dislike his attentions ? If he 
will not understand that you dislike him — wait — perhaps he 
will speak — though I hardly think — you may be mistaken, dear. 
If he speaks, let your answer be quite unmistakable.” 

“ Then I hope that he will speak to-morrow. Zoe wanted me 
to find some money in order to help him in some way — out of 
some worries.” 

“ My dear child — I implore you — do not be drawn into any 
money entanglements. What does Zoe mean? What does it 
all mean ? My dear, there is something here that I cannot un- 
derstand. What can it mean? Zoe to help my cousin out 
of worries about money ? Zoe ? What has Zoe to do with him 
and his worries ?” 

“ He has been very kind to her and to her husband.” 

“ There is something we do not understand,” Philippa re- 
peated. 

“You are not angry with me for not liking your cousin?” 

“ Angry ? Ho, indeed. He has been so spoiled with his suc- 
cess that I don’t wonder at your not liking him. As for me, 
you know, it is different. I knew Alec before his greatness be- 
came visible. Ho one, in the old days, ever suspected the 
wonderful powers he has developed. When he was a boy, no 
one knew that he could even hold a pencil, nobody suspected 
him of making rhymes — and now see what he has done. Yet, 
after all, his achievements seem to me only like incongruous addi- 
tions stuck on to a central house. Alec and painting don’t go 
together, in my mind. Hor Alec and vers de societe. Hor Alec 
and story-telling. In his youth he passed for a practical lad, 
full of common-sense and without imagination.” 

“ Was he of a sensitive, highly nervous temperament ?” 

“ Hot to my knowledge. He has been always, and is still, 
I think, a man of a singularly calm and even cold temper — not 
in the least nervous nor particularly sensitive.” 

Armorel compared this estimate with that of her companion. 


222 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


Strange that two persons should disagree so widely in their esti- 
mate of a man. 

“ Then, three or four years ago, he suddenly blossomed out 
into a painter. He invited his friends to his chambers. He told 
us that he had a little surprise for us. And then he drew aside 
a curtain and disclosed the first picture he thought worthy of 
exhibition. It hangs on the wall above your head, Armorel, 
with its companion of the following year. My father bought 
them and gave them to me.” 

Armorel got up to look at them. 

“ Oh !” she cried. “ These are copies !” 

“ Copies ? No. They are Alec’s own original pictures. 
What makes you think that they are copies ?” 

What made her think that they were copies was the very 
remarkable fact that both pictures represented scenes among 
the Scilly Isles ; that in each of them was represented — herself 
— as a girl of fifteen or sixteen ; that the sketches for both these 
pictures had been made in her own presence by the artist ; that 
he was none other than Roland Lee ; and that the picture she 
had seen in his studio was done by the same hand and in the 
same style as the two pictures before her. Of that she had no 
doubt. She had so trained her eye and hand that there could 
be no doubt at all of that fact. 

She stared, bewildered. Philippa, who was beside her, look- 
ing at the pictures, went on talking without observing the sheer 
amazement in Armorel’s eyes. 

“ That was his first picture,” she continued ; “ and this was 
the second. I remember very well the little speech he made 
while we were all crowding round the picture. 4 1 am going,’ 
he said, 4 to make a new departure. You all thought I was just 
following the beaten road at the bar. Well, I am trying a new 
and a shorter way to success. You see my first effort.’ It was 
difficult to believe our eyes. Alec a painter ? One might as well 
have expected to find Alec a poet ; and in a few months he was 
a poet ; and then a story-teller. And his poetry is as good as 
it is made in these days ; and his short stories are as good as 
any of those by the French writers.” 

44 What is the subject of this picture ?” Armorel asked with 
an effort. 

44 The place is somewhere on the Cornish coast, 1 believe. He 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


223 


always paints the same kind of picture — always a rocky coast — a 
tossing sea — perhaps a boat — spray flying over the rocks — and 
always a girl, the same girl. There she is in both pictures — a 
handsome, black-haired girl, quite young — it might be almost a 
portrait of yourself when you were younger, Armorel.” 

“ Almost,” said Armorel. 

“ This girl is now as well known to Alec’s friends as Wouver- 
mann’s white horse. But no one knows the model.” 

Armorel’s memory went hack to the day when Roland made 
that sketch. She stood — so — just as the painter had drawn 
her, on a round boulder, the water boiling and surging at her 
feet and the white foam running up. Behind her the granite 
rock, gray and black. How could she ever forget that sketch ? 

“ Alec is wonderful in his seas,” Philippa went on. “ Look 
at the bright color and the clear transparency of the water. 
You can feel it rolling at your feet. Upon my word, Armorel, 
the girl is really like you.” 

“A little, perhaps. Yes; they are good pictures, Philippa. 
The man who painted them is a painter indeed.” 

She sat down again, bewildered. 

Presently she heard Philippa’s voice. “What is it?” she 
asked. “ You have become deaf and dumb. Are you ill ?” 

“ No — I am not ill. The sight of those pictures set me think- 
ing. I will go now, Philippa. If he speaks to me I will reply 
so that there can be no mistake. But if he persists in following 
me about, I will ask you to interfere.” 

“ If necessary,” Philippa promised her, “ I will interfere 
for you. But there is something in all this which I do 
not understand. Come again soon, dear, and tell me every- 
thing.” 

When they began this talk, one girl was a little troubled, but 
not much. The other was free from any trouble. When they 
parted, both girls w T ere troubled. 

One felt, vaguely, that danger was in the air. Zoe meant some- 
thing by constantly talking about her cousin Alec. What un- 
derstanding was there between him and that woman — that de- 
testable woman ? 

The other walked home in a doubt and perplexity that drove 
everything else out of her head. What did those pictures 
mean? Had Roland given away his sketches? Was there 


224 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


another painter who had the very touch of Roland as well as his 
sketches ? No, no ; it was impossible. 

Suddenly she remembered something on the fragment of 
paper that Effie picked up. The corner of the torn check — 
even the signature of Alec Feilding. What did that mean? 
Why had Roland torn up a check signed by Mr. Feilding? 
Why had he called that act the turning of the footstep ? 


CHAPTER XI. 

A CRITIC ON TRUTH. 

One painter may make use of another man’s sketches for his 
own pictures. The thing is conceivable, though one cannot re- 
call, and there is no record of, any such case. It is, perhaps, 
possible. Portrait painters have employed other men to paint 
backgrounds and even hands and drapery. Now, the two pict- 
ures hanging in Philippa’s room were most certainly painted 
from Roland’s sketches. If there were any room for doubt, the 
figure of Armorel herself in the foreground removed that doubt. 
Therefore, Roland must have lent his sketches to Mr. Feilding. 
What else did he lend ? Can one man lend another his eye, his 
hand, his sense of color, his touch, his style ? There was once, 
I seem to have read, a man who sold his soul to the old Func- 
tionary who buys such things, and keeps a stock of them sec- 
ond-hand, on the condition that he should be able to paint as 
well as the immortal Raffaello. He obtained his wish, because 
the Devil always keeps his bargain to the letter, with the result 
that, instead of winning the imperishable wreath for himself 
that he expected, he was never known at all, and his pictures 
are now sold as those of the master whose works they so mirac- 
ulously resemble. Armorel had, perhaps, heard this story some- 
where. Could the cleverest man In all London have made a 
similar transaction, taking Roland Lee for his model? If so, 
the Devil had not cheated him at all, and he got out of the bar- 
gain all he expected, because he not only painted quite as well 
as his master, and in exactly the same style, so that it was im- 
possible to distinguish between them, but, which the other un* 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


225 


fortunate did not get, all the credit was given to liim, while the 
original model or master languished in obscurity. 

It was obvious to a trained eye, at very first sight, that the 
style of the pictures was that of Roland Lee. He had a style 
of his own. The first mark of genius in any art is individual- 
ity. His style was no more to be imitated in painting than the 
style of Robert Browning can be followed in poetry. Painters 
there are who have been imitated and have created a school of im- 
itators ; even these can always be distinguished from their copy- 
ists. The subtle touch of the master, the personal presence of 
his hand, cannot be copied or imitated. In these two pictures 
the hand of Roland was clearly, unmistakably visible. The 
light thrown over them, the atmosphere with which they were 
charged — everything was his. He had caught the September 
sunshine as it lies over and enfolds the Scilly Islands — who 
should know that soft and golden light better than Armorel ? — 
he had caught the transparencies of the seas, the shining yel- 
lows of the sea-weed, the browns and purples of bramble and 
fern, the grayness and the blackness of the rock. You could 
hear the rush of the water eddying among the boulders ; you 
could see the rapid movement of the sea-gulls’ wings as they 
swept along with the wind. Could another, even with the orig- 
inal sketches lying before him, even with skill and feeling of his 
own, reproduce these things in Roland’s own individual style ? 

“ No,” she cried, but not aloud ; “ I know these pictures. They 
are not his at all. They are Roland’s.” 

Every line of thought that she followed — to write these down 
would be to produce another “ Ring and Book ” — in her troubled 
meditations after the discovery led her to the same conclusion. 
It was that at which she had arrived in a single moment of time, 
without argument or reasoning, and at the very first sight of 
the pictures. The first thought is always right. “ They are 
Roland’s pictures” — that was the first thought. The second 
thought brings along the doubts, suggests objections, endeavors 
to be judicial, deprecates haste, and calls for the scales. “ They 
cannot,” said the second thought, “be Roland’s paintings, be- 
cause Mr. Feilding says they are his.” The third thought, 
which is the first strengthened by evidence, declared emphat- 
ically that they were Roland’s, whatever Mr. Feilding might say, 
and could be the work of none other. 

10 * 


226 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


Therefore, the cleverest man in all London, according to every- 
body, the best and most generous and most honorable, according 
toArmorel’s companion, was an impostor and a liar. Never be- 
fore had she ever heard of such a liar. 

Armorel, it is true, knew but little of the crooked paths by 
which many men perform this earthly pilgrimage from the world 
which is to the world which is to come. Children born on Sam- 
son — nay, even those also of St. Mary’s — have few opportuni- 
ties of observing these ways. That is why all Scillonians are 
perfectly honest : they do not know how to cheat — even those 
who might wish to become dishonest if they knew. In her five 
years’ apprenticeship the tree of knowledge had dropped some 
of its baleful fruit at Armorel’s feet: that cannot be avoided 
even in a convent garden. Yet she had not eaten largely of the 
fruit, nor with the voracity that distinguishes many young peo- 
ple of both sexes when they get hold of these apples. In other 
words, she only knew of craft and falsehood in general terms, 
as they are set forth in the Gospels and by the Apostles, and 
especially in the Book of Revelations, which expressly states the 
portion of liars. Yet, even with this slight foundation to build 
upon, Armorel was well aware that here was a fraud of a most 
monstrous character. Surely there never was, before this man, 
any man in the world who dared to present to the world another 
man’s paintings, and to call them his own ? Men and women 
have claimed books which they never wrote — witness the lead- 
ing case of the false George Eliot and the story told by Anthony 
Trollope ; men have pretended to be well-known writers — did I 
not myself once meet a man in a hotel pretending to be one 
of our most genial of story-tellers ? Men have written things 
and pretended that they were the work of famous hands. Lit- 
erature, alas ! hath many impostors. But in Art the record is 
clean. There are a few ghosts, to be sure, here and there — spo- 
radic spectres ! — but they are obscure and mostly unknown. Ar- 
morel had never heard or seen any of them. Surely, there never 
before was any man like unto this man ! 

And, apart from the colossal impudence of the thing, she be- 
gan to consider the profound difficulties in carrying it out. Be- 
cause, you see, no one man, unaided, could carry it through. It 
requires the consent, the silence, and the active, nay, the zealous, 
co-operation of another man. And how are you to get that man ? 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


227 


In order to get this other man — this active and zealous fel- 
low-conspirator — you must find means to persuade him to sacri- 
fice every single thing that men care for — honor, reputation, 
success. lie must be satisfied to pursue art, actually and lit- 
erally, for art’s own sake. This, I know, is a rule of conduct 
preached by every art critic, every aesthete, every lecturer or 
writer on art. Yet observe what it may lead to. AVas there, 
for instance, an unknown genius who gave his work to Giotto, 
with permission to call it his own ? And was that obscure ge- 
nius content to sit and watch that work in the crowd, unseen and 
unsuspected, while he murmured praises and thanksgiving for 
the skill of hand and eye which had been given to him, but 
claimed by that other young man, Messer Giotto ? Did Turner 
have his ghost? Sublime sacrifice of self! So to pursue art 
for art’s sake as to give your pictures to another man by 
which he may rise to honor — even, it may be, to the pres- 
idency of the Royal Academy, contented only with the con- 
sciousness of good and sincere work, and with the possession 
of mastery ! It is beyond us : we cannot achieve this great- 
ness, we cannot rise to this devotion. Art hath no such vota- 
ries. By what persuasions, then — by what bribes — was Roland 
induced to consent to his own suicide — ignoble, secret, and 
shameful suicide ? 

He must have consented ; in no other way could the thing 
be done. He must have agreed to efface himself — but not out 
of pure devotion to art. Not so. The Roland of the past 
survived still. The burning desire for distinction and recogni- 
tion still flamed in his soul. The bitterness and shame with 
which he spoke of himself proved that his consent had been 
wrung from him. He was ashamed. Why ? Because another 
bore the honors that should be his. Because he was a bond- 
man of the impostor. Of this Armorel was certain. Roland 
Lee — the man whom for five long years she had imagined to 
be marching from triumph to triumph, conqueror of the world — 
had sold himself — for what consideration she knew not — hand 
and eye, genius and brain, heart and soul — had sold himself 
into slavery. He had consented to a monstrous and most im- 
pudent fraud ! And the man who stood before the canvas in 
public, writing his name in the corner, was — the noun appella- 
tive, the proper noun, belonging to such an act. And her own 


228 


ARMOREL GF LYONESSE. 


friend — her gallant hero of art — what else was he in this con- 
spiracy of two? You cannot persuade a woman — such is the 
poverty of the feminine imagination — to call a thing like this 
by any other name than its plain, simple, and natural one. A 
man may explain away, find excuses, make suggestions, point 
out extenuating circumstances, show how the force of events 
destroys free will, and propose a surplice and a golden crown 
for the unfortunate victim of fate, instead of bare shoulders and 
the nine-clawed cat. But a woman — never ! If the thing done 
is a lie, the man who did it is a — 

“ Armorel,” said her companion — it was in the afternoon, and 
she had been dozing after her lunch — “what is the matter? 
You have been sitting in the window, which has a detestable 
view of a dismal street, for two hours long without talking. At 
lunch you sat as if in a dream. Are you ill ? Has anything 
happened ? Has the respectable Mr. Jagenal robbed you of 
your money ? Has Philippa been saying amiable things about 
me ?” 

“ I have found out something which has disquieted me be- 
yond expression,” said Armorel, gravely. 

Zoe changed color. “ Heavens !” she laughed curiously. 
“ What has come out now ? Anything about me ? One never 
knows what may come out next. It is very odd what a lot of 
things may be sSiid about everybody.” 

“ My discovery has nothing to do with you, at least — no, noth- 
ing at all.” 

“ That is reassuring.” It certainly was, as everybody knows 
who does not wish the curtain to draw up once again on the 
earlier and half-forgotten scenes of the play. “ Perhaps it might 
relieve you, dear, if you were to tell me. But do not think I 
am curious. Besides, I dare say I could tell you more than you 
could tell me. Is it about Philippa’s hopeless attachment for the 
man who will never marry her, and her cruelty to the reverend 
gentleman who will ?” 

“ No — no : it is nothing about Philippa. I know nothing about 
any attachments. 7 ’ 

“ Well, you will tell me when you please.” Zoe relapsed into 
warmth and silence. But she w T atched the girl from under her 
heavy eyelids. Something had happened — something serious. 
Armorel pursued her meditations, but in a different line. She 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


229 


now remembered that the leader in this fraud was the man 
whom Zoe professed to honor above all other living men. 
Could she tell this disciple what she had discovered? One 
might as well inform Kadysha that her prophet, Mohammed, 
was an epileptic impostor. And, again, he was Philippa’s first 
cousin, and she regarded him with pride, if not — as Zoe sug- 
gested — with a warmer feeling still. How could she bring this 
trouble upon Philippa ? 

And, again, it was Roland’s secret. How could she reveal a 
thing which would cover him with ridicule and discredit for the 
rest of his life ? She must be silent for the sake of everybody. 

“ Zoe,” she sprang to her feet, “ don’t ask me anything more. 
Forget what I said. It is not my own secret.” 

“My dear child,” Zoe murmured, “if nobody has run away 
with your money, and if you have found out no mares’ nests 
about me, I don’t mind anything. I have already quite forgot- 
ten. Why should I remember ?” 

“ Of course,” Armorel repeated, impatiently — this companion 
of hers often made her impatient — “ there is nothing about you. 
It concerns — ” 

“Mr. Feilding.” 

It was only an innocent maid who opened the door to an- 
nounce an afternoon caller ; but Armorel started, for, really, it 
was the right completion to her sentence, though not the com- 
pletion she meant to make. 

He came in — the man of whom her mind was full — tall, hand- 
some, calm, and self-possessed. Authority sat, visible to all, 
upon his brow. His dress, his manner, his voice proclaimed 
the man who had succeeded — who deserved to succeed. Oh ! 
how could it be possible ? 

Armorel mechanically gave him her hand, wondering. Then, 
quite in the old style, and as a survival of Samson Island, there 
passed rapidly through her mind the whole procession of those 
texts which refer to liars. For the moment she felt curious and 
nervously excited, as one whef should talk with a man condemned. 
Then she came back to London and to the exigencies of the sit- 
uation. Yet it was really quite wonderful. For he sat down 
and began to talk for all the world as if he were a perfectly truth- 
ful person ; and she rang the bell for tea, and poured it out for 
him, as if she knew nothing to the contrary. That he, being 


230 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


wliat lie was, should so carry himself ; that she, who knew ev- 
erything, should sit down calmly and put milk and sugar in his 
tea, were two facts so extraordinary that her head reeled. 

Presently, however, she began to feel amused. It was like 
knowing beforehand, so that the mind is free to think of other 
things, the story and the plot of a comedy. She considered the 
acting and the make-up. And both were admirable. The part 
of successful genius could not be better played. One has known 
genius too modest to accept the position, happiest while sitting 
in a dark corner. Here, however, was genius stepping to the 
front and standing there boldly in sight of all, as if the place were 
his by the double right of birth and of conquest. 

He sat down and began to talk of art. He seldom, indeed, 
talked about anything else. But art has many branches, and 
he talked about them all. To-day, however, he discoursed on 
drawing and painting. He was accustomed to patient listeners, 
and therefore he assumed that his discourse was received with 
respect, and did not observe the preoccupied look on the face of 
the girl to whom he discoursed ; for Zoe made no pretence of 
listening, except when the conversation seemed likely to take a 
personal turn. Nor did he observe how, from time to time, Ar- 
morel turned her eyes upon him — eyes full of astonishment — 
eyes struck with amazement. 

Presently he descended for a while from the heights of princi- 
ple to the low level of personal topic. “ Mrs. Elstree tells me,” 
he said, smiling with some condescension, “ that you paint — of 
course, as an amateur — as well as play. If you can draw as 
well as you can play you are indeed to be envied. But that is, 
perhaps, too much to be expected. Will you show me some of 
your work ? And will you — without being offended — suffer me 
to be a candid critic ?” 

Armorel went gravely to her own room, and returned with a 
small portfolio full of drawings, which she placed before him, 
still with the wonder in her eyes. What would he say — this 
man who passed off another man’s pictures for his own? She 
stood at the table over him, looking down upon him, waiting to 
see him betray himself — the first criminal person — the first real- 
ly wicked man — she had ever encountered in the flesh. 

“ You are not afraid of the truth ?” he asked, turning over 
the sketches. “ In art — truth — truth is everything. Without 


The cleverest man in all London, according to everybody. 





















































































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ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


231 


truth there is no art. Truth and sincerity should he our aim in 
criticism as well as in art itself.” 

Oh ! what kind of conscience could this man have, who was 
able so to talk about art, seeing what manner of man he was? 
Armorel glanced at Zoe, half afraid that he would convict him- 
self in her presence. But she seemed asleep, lying back in her 
cushions. 

His remarks were judgments. Once pronounced, there was no 
appeal. Yet his judgments produced no effect upon the girl ; 
not the least. She listened, she heard, she acquiesced in silence. 

Perhaps because he was struck with her coldness he left off 
examining the sketches, and began a learned little discourse 
about composition and harmony, selection and grouping. He 
illustrated these remarks, not obtrusively, but quite naturally, 
by referring to his own pictures, appealing to Zoe, who lazily 
raised her head and murmured response, as one who knew it all 
beforehand. Now, as to the discourse itself, Armorel recog- 
nized every word of it already ; she had read and had been 
taught these very things. It showed, she thought, what a pre- 
tender the man must be not to understand work that had been 
done by one who had studied seriously, and already knew all 
he was laboriously enforcing. But she said nothing. It was, 
moreover, the lesson of a professor, not of an artist. Between 
the professional critic, who can neither paint nor draw, and the 
smallest of the men who can paint and draw, there is, if you 
please, a gulf fixed that cannot be passed over. 

“ This drawing, for instance,” he concluded, taking up one 
from the table, “ betrays exactly the weakness of which I have 
been speaking. It has some merit. There is a desire for truth 
— without truth what are we? The lights are managed with 
some dexterity, the color has real feeling. But consider this 
figure. From sheer ignorance of the elementary considerations 
which I have been laying down, you have placed it exactly in 
front. Had it been here, at the right, the effect of the figure 
in bringing up the whole of the picture would have been height- 
ened tenfold. For my own part, I always like a figure in a paint- 
ing — a single figure for choice — a girl, because the treatment of 
the hair and the dress lends itself to effect.” 

“ His famous girl !” echoed Zoe. “ That model whom nobody 
is allowed to see !” 


232 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


Now, the figure was placed in the middle for very excellent 
reasons, and in full consideration of those very principles which 
this expounder had been setting forth. But what yesterday 
would have puzzled her now amused her one moment and irri- 
tated her the next. 

He took up a crayon. “ Shall I show you,” he asked, “ ex^ 
actly what I mean ?” 

“ If you please. Here is a piece of paper which will do.” 

He spoke in the style which Matthew Arnold so much ad- 
mired — the grand style — the words clear and articulate, the em- 
phasis just, the manner authoritative. “ I will just indicate your 
background,” he said, poising the pencil professionally — he looked 
as if the grand style really belonged to him — “ in two or three 
strokes, and then I will sketch in your figure in the place — here 
— where it properly belongs. You will see immediately, though, 
of course — your eye — cannot — ” He played with the chalk as 
one considering where to begin — but he did not begin. Armo- 
rel remembered a certain day when Roland gave her his first 
lesson, pencil in hand. Never was that pencil idle ; it moved 
about of its own accord ; it was drawing all the time ; it seemed 
to be drawing out of its own head. Mr. Feilding, on the other 
hand, never touched the paper at all. His pencil was dumb and 
lifeless. But Armorel waited anxiously for him to begin. Now, 
at any rate, she should see if he could draw. She was disap- 
pointed. The clock on the overmantel suddenly struck six. 
Mr. Feilding dropped the crayon. “ Good heavens !” he cried. 
“You make one forget everything, Miss Rosevean. We must 
put off the rest of this talk for another day. But you will per- 
severe, dear young lady, will you not? Promise me that you 
will persevere. Even if the highest peak cannot be attained — 
we may not all reach that height — it is something to stand upon 
the lower slope, if it is only to recognize the greatness of those 
who are above and the depths below — how deep they are ! — of 
the world which knows no art. Persevere — persevere ! I will 
call again and help you, if I may.” He pressed her hand warmly, 
and departed. 

“ I really think,” said Zoe, “ that he believes you worth teach- 
ing, Armorel. I have never known him give so much time to 
any one girl before. And if you only knew how they flock 
about him !” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


233 


u Zoc,” said Arraorel, without answering this remark, “ you 
have seen all Mr. Feilding’s pictures, have you not ?” 

“ I believe, all.” 

“ Do they all treat the same subject ?” 

“Dp to the present he has exhibited nothing but sea and 
coast pictures, headlands, low tide on the rocks, and so forth. 
Always with his black-haired girl — something like you, but not 
much more than a child.” 

“ Did you ever see him actually at work ?” 

“ You mean working at an unfinished thing ? No ; never, 
lie cannot endure any one in his studio while he is at work.” 

“ Did he ever draw anything for you — any pen-and-ink sketch 
— pencil sketch? Have you got any of his sketches — rough 
things ?” 

“ No. Alec has a secretive side to his character. It comes 
out in odd ways. No one suspected that he could paint, or even 
draw, until, three or four years ago, he suddenly burst upon us 
with a finished picture ; and then it came out that he had been 
secretly drawing all his life, and studying seriously for years. 
Where he will break out next I don’t know.” 

“ He may break out anywhere,” said Armorel, “ except upon 
the fiddle. I think that he will never play to us. Yes, Zoe, 
he really is a very, very clever man. He is certainly the very 
cleverest man in all London.” 


CHAPTER XII. 

TO MAKE THAT PROMISE SURE. 

There are few instincts and impulses of imperfect human 
nature more deeply rooted or more certain to act upon us than 
the desire to “ have it out ” with some other human creature. 
Women are especially led or driven by this impulse, even among 
the less highly civilized, to the tearing out of nose and ear rings. 
You may hear every day, at all hours, in every back street of 
every city, the ladies having it out with each other. In fact, 
there is a perpetual court of Common Pleas being held in these 
streets, without respite of holiday or truce, in which the folk 
have it out with each other, while friends — sympathetic friends 


234 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


— stand-by and act as judges, jury, arbitrators, lawyers, and all. 
Things are reported, things are said, things are done, a personal 
explanation is absolutely necessary, before peace of mind can be 
restored or the way to future action become clearly visible. 
The two parties must have it out. 

In Armorel’s case, she found that, before doing anything, she 
must see that member of the conspiracy — if, indeed, there was 
a conspiracy — who was her own friend : she must see Roland. 
She must know exactly what it meant, if only to find out how 
it could be stopped. In plain words, she must have it out. 
Those who obey a natural impulse generally believe that they 
are acting by deliberate choice. Thus the doctrine of free will 
came to be invented ; and thus Armorel, when she took a cab 
to the other studio, had no idea but that she was acting the 
most original part ever devised for any comedy. 

As before, she found the artist in his dingy back room, alone. 
But the picture was advancing. When she saw it, a fortnight 
before, it was little more than the ghost of a rock with a spec- 
tral sea and a shadowy girl beside the sea. Now it was ad- 
vanced so far that one could see the beginnings of a fine paint- 
ing in it. 

Roland stepped forward and greeted his old friend. Why 
—he was already transformed. What had he done to himself. 
The black bar was gone from his forehead ; his eyes were bright; 
his cheeks had got something of their old color; his hair was 
trimmed, and his dress, as well as his manner, showed a return 
to self-respect. 

“ What happy thought brings you here again, Armorel ?” he 
asked, with the familiarity of an old friend. 

“ I came to see you at work. Last time I came only to see 
you. Is it permitted ?” 

“ Behold me ! I am at work. See my picture — all there is 
of it.” 

Armorel looked at it long and carefully. Then she mur- 
mured, unintelligibly, “ Yes, of course. But there never could 
have been any doubt.” She turned to the artist a face full 
of encouragement. “ What did I prophesy for you, Roland ? 
That you should be a great painter? Well, my prophecy will 
come true.” 

“ I hope, but I fear. I am beginning the world again.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


235 


“ Not quite. Because you have never ceased to work. Your 
hand is firmer and your eye is truer now than it was four years 
ago, when you — ceased to exhibit. But you have never ceased 
to work. See that you go back to the world with better things.” 

“ They refused to buy my things before.” 

“ They will not refuse now. Nay, I am certain. Don’t think 
of money, my old friend ; you must not — you shall not think 
of money. Think of nothing but your work — and your name. 
What ought to be done to a man who should forget his name ? 
He deserves to be deprived of his genius, and to be cast out 
among the stupid. But you, Roland, you were always keen for 
distinction — were you not ?” 

• He made no reply. 

“ How well I know the place !” she said, standing before the 
picture. “ It is the narrow channel between Round Island and 
Camber Rock. Oh ! the dear, terrible place. When you and I 
were there, you remember, Roland, the water was smooth and 
the sea-birds were flying quietly. I have seen them driven by 
the wind off the island and beating up against it like a sailing 
ship. But in September there are no puffins. And I have seen 
the water racing and roaring through the channel, dashing up 
the black sides of the rocks — while we lay off, afraid to venture 
near. It was low tide when you made your sketch. I remem- 
ber the long, yellow fringing sea-weed hanging from the rock 
six feet deep. And there is your girl sitting in the boat. Oh ! 
I remember her very well. What a happy time she had while 
you were with her, Roland ! You were the very first person to 
show her something of the outer world. It seemed, when you 
were gone, as if you had taken that girl and planted her on a 
high rock so that she could see right across the water to the 
world of men and art. You always keep this girl in your pict- 
ures ?” 

“ Always in these pictures of coast and rock.” 

“ Roland, I want you to make a change. Do not paint the 
girl of sixteen in this picture. Let me be your model instead. 
Put me into the picture. It is my fancy. Will you let me sit 
for you again ?” 

“ Surely, Armorel, if I may. It will be — oh, but you cannot 
— you must not come to this den of a place.” 

“ Indeed, I think it is not a nice place at all. But I shall 


236 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


stipulate that you take another and a more decent studio imme- 
diately. Will you do this ?” 

“ I will do anything — anything — that you command.” 

“ You know what I want. The return of my old friend. He 
is on his way hack already.” 

“ I know — I know. But whether he ever can come hack again 
I know not. A shade or spectre of him perhaps, or himself, 
besmirched and ■ smudged, Armorel — dragged through the 
mud.” 

“ I can wait for him. You will take a studio, and I will 
come and sit to you. I may bring my little friend, Effie Wilmot, 
with me? That is agreed, then. You will go, sir, this very 
morning, and find a studio. Have you gone back to your club 
and to your old friends ?” 

“ No. I shall go back to them when I have got work to show. 
Not before.” 

“ I think you should go back as soon as you have taken your 
new studio. It will be safer and better. You have been too 
much alone. And there is another thing — a very important 
thing — the other night you made me a promise. You tore 
up something that looked like a check. And you assured 
me that this meant nothing less than a return to the old 
paths.” 

“When I tore up that accursed check, Armorel, I became a 
free man.” 

“ So I understood. But when one talks of free men one im- 
plies the existence of the master or owner of men who are not 
free. Have you signified to that master or owner your intention 
to be his bondman no longer ?” 

“ No. I have not.” 

“This man, Roland,” she laid her hand on his, “tell me 
frankly, has he any hold upon you ?” 

“ None.” 

“Can he injure you in any way? Can he revenge himself 
upon you? Is there any old folly or past wickedness that he 
can bring up against you ?” 

“None. I have to begin the world again ; that is the outside 
mischief.” 

“ All your pictures you have sold to this man, Roland, with 
me in every one ?” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


237 


“Yes, all. Spare me, Armorel! With you in every one. 
Forgive me, if you can !” 

“ I understand now, my poor friend, why you were so cast 
down and ashamed. What? You sold your genius — your 
holy, sacred genius — the spirit that is within you ! You flung 
yourself away — your name, which is yourself — you became 
nothing, while this man pretends that the pictures — yours — 
were his ! lie puts his name to them, not your own — he shows 
them to his friends in the room that he calls his studio — he 
sends them to the exhibition as his own — and yet you have 
been able to live ! Oh, how could you ? — how could you ? Oh! 
it was shameful — shameful — shameful ! How could you, Rol- 
and? Oh, my master! — I have loaded you with honor — oh, 
how could you ? — how could you ?” 

The vehemence of her indignation soon revived the old 
shame. Roland hung his head. 

“How could I?” he repeated. “Yes, say it again — ask the 
question a thousand times — how could I ?” 

“ Forgive me, Roland ! I have been thinking about it con- 
tinually. It is a thing so dreadful ; and yesterday something — 
an unexpected something — brought it back to my mind — and 
— and — made me understand more what it meant. And, oh, 
Roland, how could you? I thought, before, that you had only 
idled and trifled away your time ; but now T know. And, again 
— again — again — how could you?” 

“ It is no excuse — but it is an explanation — I do not defend 
myself. Not the least in the world — but — Armorel, I was 
starving.” 

“ Starving ?” 

“I could not sell my pictures. No one wanted them. The 
dealers would give me nothing but a few shillings apiece for 
them. I was penniless, and I was in debt. And I loved the 
luxurious life. I tried for employment on the magazines and 
papers, but without success. In truth, I knew not where to 
look for the next week’s rent and the next week’s meals. I was 
a failure, and I was penniless. Do you ask more V 9 

“ Then the man came — ” 

“ He came — my name was worth nothing — he asked me to 
suppress it. My work, which no one would buy, he offered to 
buy for what seemed, in my poverty, substantial prices, if I 


238 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


would let him call it his own. What was the bargain ? A life 
of ease against the bare chance of a name with the certainty of 
hard times. I was so desperate that I accepted.” 

“You accepted. Yes — But you might have given it up 
at any moment.” 

“To be plunged back again into the penniless state. For 
the life of ease, mark you, brought no ease but a bare subsist- 
ence. Only quite lately, terrified by the success of the last 
picture, my employer has offered to give me two thirds of all 
he gets. The check you saw me tear up and burn was the first 
considerable sum I have ever received. It is gone, and I am 
penniless again — ” 

“ And now that you are penniless ?” 

“ Now I shall pawn my watch and chain and everything else. 
I shall finish this picture, and I will sell it for what the dealers 
will give me for it. Too late, this year, for exhibition. And 
so — we shall see. If the worst comes, I can carry a pair of 
boards up and down Piccadilly, opposite to the Royal Acade- 
my, and dream of the artistic life that once I hoped would be 
my own.” 

“You will do better than that, Roland,” said Armorel, moved 
to tears. “ Oh ! you will make a great name yet. But this man 
— don’t tell me his name. Roland, promise me, please, not to 
tell me his name. I want you — just now — to think that it is 
your own secret — to yourself. If I should find it out, by acci- 
dent, that would be — just now — my secret — to myself. This 
man — you have not yet broken with him ?” 

“ Not yet.” 

“ Will you g<3 to him and tell him that it is all over ? Or will 
you write to him ?” 

“ I thought that I would wait, and let him come to me.” 

“ I would not, if I were you. I would write, and tell him at 
once, and plainly. Sit down, Roland, and write now — at once 
— without delay. Then you will feel happier.” 

“ I will do what you command me,” he replied, meekly. lie 
had, indeed, resolved with all his might and main that the rupt- 
ure should be made ; but, as yet, he had not made it. 

“ Get paper, then, and write.” 

“ lie obeyed, and sat down. “ What shall I say,” he asked. 

“ Write : ‘ After four years of slavery, I mean to become a 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


239 


man once more. Onr compact is over. You shall no longer 
put your name to my works ; and I will no longer share in the 
infamy of this fraud. Find, if you can, some other starving 
painter, and buy him. I have torn up your check, and I am 
now at work on a picture which will be my own. If there is 
any awkwardness about the subject and the style, in connection 
with the name upon it, that awkwardness will be yours, not 
mine.’ So — will you read it aloud? I think,” said Armorel, 
“that it will do. He will probably come here and bluster a 
little. He may even threaten. He may weep. You will — 
Roland — are you sure — you will be adamant ?” 

“ I swear, Armorel ! I will be true to my promise.” 

Armorel heaved a sigh. Would he stand steadfast? He 
might have much to endure. Would he be able to endure 
hardness ? It is only the very young man who can be happy 
in a garret and live contentedly on a crust. At twenty-six or 
twenty-seven, the age at which Roland had now arrived, one is 
no longer quite so young. The garret is dismal ; the crust is 
insipid, unless there are solid grounds for hope. Yet he had 
the solid grounds of improved work — good work. 

“ Should you be afraid of him ?” she asked. 

“Afraid of him?” Roland laughed. “Why, I never meet 
him but I curse him aloud. Afraid of him ? No. I have never 
been afraid of anything but of becoming penniless. Poverty — 
destitution — is an awful spectre. And not only poverty, but — 
I confess, with shame — ” 

“ Oh, man of little faith ” — she did not want to hear the end 
of that confession — “ you could not endure a single hour. You 
did this awful thing for want of money.” 

“ I did,” said Roland, meekly. 

“ The Way of Pleasure and the Way of Wealth. I remember 
— you told me long ago — they draw the young man by ropes. 
But not the girl. Why not the girl ? We never feel this strange 
yearning for riot and excess. In all the poetry, the novels, the 
pictures, and the plays the young men are always being dragged 
by ropes to the Way of Pleasure. Are men so different from 
women ? What does it mean — this yearning ? I cannot under- 
stand it. What is your Way of Pleasure that it should attract 
you so? Your poetry and your novels cannot explain it. I see 
feasting in it, drinking, singing, dancing, gambling, sitting up 


240 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


all night, and love-making. As for work, there is none. Why 
should the young man want to feast? It is like a city aider- 
man to he always thinking of banquets. Why should you want 
to drink wine perpetually ? I suppose you do not actually get 
tipsy. If you can sing, and like singing, you can sing over your 
work, I suppose. As for love-making — ” She paused. The 
subject, where a young man and a maiden discuss it, has to be 
treated delicately. “ I have always supposed that two people 
fall in love when they are fitted for each other. But in this, 
your wonderful Way of Pleasure, the poets write as if every man 
was always wanting to make love to every woman if she is pleas- 
ant to look at, and without troubling whether she is good or 
bad, wise or silly. Oh ! every woman — any woman — there is 
neither dignity of manhood nor self-respect nor respect to wom- 
an in this folly.” 

“ You cannot understand any of it, Armorel,” said Roland. 
“ We ought all of us to be flogged from Newgate to Tyburn — ” 

“That would not make me understand. Flora, Cliloe, Daph- 
ne, Amaryllis — they are all the same to the poet. A pretty girl 
seems all that he cares for. Can that be love ?” 

“ — and back again,” said Roland. 

“ Still I should not understand. In the poetry 1 think that 
love-making comes first, and eating and drinking afterwards. As 
for love-making ” — she spoke philosophically, as one in search of 
truth — “as for love-making, I believe I could wait contentedly 
without it until I found exactly the one man I could love. But 
that I should take a delight in writing or singing songs about 
making love to every man who was a handsome fellow — any 
man — every man — oh ! can one conceive such a thing ? There 
is but one Way of Pleasure to such as you, Roland. If I could 
paint so good a picture as this is going to be, it would be a life- 
long joy. I should never, never tire of it. I should want no other 
pleasure — nothing better — than to work day after day, to work 
and study, to watch and observe, to feel the mastery of hand 
and eye. Oh ! Roland — with this before you — with this ” — she 
pointed to the picture — “ you sold your soul — you — you — you ! 
for feasting and drinking and — and — perhaps — ” 

“ No, Armorel ; no. Everything else, if you like, but not 
love-making.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


241 


CHAPTER XIII. 

THE DRAMATIST. 

If Mrs. Elstree was Armorel’s official and authorized com- 
panion, her private unpaid companion was Effiie Wilmot. The 
official companion was resident in the chambers, and was seen 
with her charge at the theatres and concerts. The private un- 
paid companion went about with her all day long, sat with her in 
her own room, knew what she thought, and talked with her of the 
things she loved to discuss. So that, though the representa- 
tive of order and propriety had less to do, the unpaid attachee 
had a much more lively time. Fortunately, the official compan- 
ion was best pleased when there was nothing to do. In those 
days, when London was as yet an unknown land to both of 
them, the girls went together to see things. Nobody knows 
what a great quantity of things there are to see in London 
when you once set yourself seriously to explore this great un- 
known continent. Captain Magalhaens himself, crossing the 
Pacific Ocean for, the first time, did not experience a more in- 
teresting and exciting time than these two girls in their walks 
in and about the great town, new to both. They were as rav- 
enous as American tourists beginning their European round. 
And, like them, they consulted their Baedeker, their Hare, and 
their Peter Cunningham. Pictures there are, all about the West 
End; museums, with every kind of treasure; historic houses — 
alas ! not many ; libraries ; art galleries of all kinds ; cathe- 
drals, churches, ancient and modern ; old streets, whose paving- 
stones are inscribed in the closest print with the most wonder- 
ful recollections; old sites, broken fragments, even. Every 
morning the two girls wandered forth, sometimes not coming 
home till late in the afternoon. Then Effie went back to her lodg- 
ing, and spent the evening working at her verses ; while Armo- 
rel practised her violin, or read and dreamed away the time op- 
posite her companion, who sat for the most part in silence, gaz- 
ing into the firelight, lying back in her easy-chair beside the lire. 

11 


242 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


These ramblings belong to another book — the Book of the 
Things Left Out. I could show you, dear reader, many curious 
and interesting places visited by these two pilgrims ; but one 
must not in this place writedhese down, because Armorel’s story 
is not Armorel’s history. Let us always be careful to distin- 
guish. Besides, the events which must be related destroyed, as 
you will see, the calm and tranquillity necessary for the proper 
enjoyment of such ramblings. First, this discovery concerning 
the pictures. Who can visit old churches and museums with a 
mind full of wrath and bitterness? So wrathful was Armorel 
in considering the impudence of the fraud she had discovered, 
so bitter was she in considering the cowardice of her old hero, 
that she even failed to observe the unmistakable signs of trouble 
which at this time showed themselves in her friend’s face. If 
not a beautiful face, it was expressive. When the projecting 
forehead showed a thick black line ; when the deep-set eyes 
were ringed with dark circles ; when the pale cheeks grew paler 
and more hollow ; and when the girl, who was generally so bright 
and animated, became silent and distraite , something was wrong. 

“ What is it, Effie ?” Armorel asked, waking up. “ I have 
asked you three questions, and have received no answer. And 
you are looking ill. Has anything gone wrong ?” 

“ Oh !” cried Effie, “ it is horrid ! You are in trouble of your 
own, and you want me to add to it by telling about mine.” 

“ I am in trouble, dear ; and it makes me selfish and blind. 
You know partly what it is about. It is about the life that has 
gone wrong. I have found out why and how. But I cannot 
tell you. Never mind. Tell me about yourself.” 

“It is more about my brother than myself. You know that 
Archie has been writing a play ?” 

“ Yes. You write verses which you have never shown me, 
and your brother writes plays. I shall see both some day, per- 
haps.” 

“ Whenever you like. But Archie has now finished his 
play.” 

“ Yes.” 

“ That means to him more than I can possibly tell you. He 
has been living for that play, and for nothing else. It has filled 
his brain day and night. Never was so much trouble given to a 
play before, I am sure. It is himself.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


243 


“ I understand.” 

“ Well, then, you will understand also what he feels when he 
has been told that his play is utterly worthless.” 

“ Who told him that V 9 

“A great authority — a writer of great reputation — the only 
living writer whom we have ever known.” 

“ Well — but — Effie, if a great authority says this, it is fright- 
ful.” 

“ It would be but for one thing, which you shall hear after- 
wards. However, he did confess that some of the situations 
were fine. But the dialogue, he said, was unfitted for the stage, 
and no manager would so much as look at the play.” 

“ Poor Archie ! What a dreadful blow ! What does he say ?” 

“ He is utterly cast down. He sits at home and broods. 
Sometimes he swears that he will tear up the thing and throw 
it into the fire ; sometimes he recovers a little of his own confi- 
dence in it. He will not eat anything, and he does not sleep ; 
and I can find nothing to say that will comfort him. If I knew 
any one who would give him another opinion, the play cannot 
be so bad. Armorel, will you read the play ?” 

“ But, my dear, I am no critic. What would be the good of 
my reading it ?” 

“ I would rather have your criticism than ” — she hesitated — 
“ than anybody’s. Because you can feel — and you have the art- 
ist’s soul ; and everybody has not, though he may paint such 
beautiful pictures,” she added, rather obscurely. 

“ Well, I will read the play, or hear him read it, if you think 
it will do him any good, Effie.” I will go with you at once.” 

“ Oh ! will you, really ? Archie will be shy at first. The last 
criticism caused him so much anger that he dreads another. But 
yours will be sympathetic, at least. You will understand what 
lie meant, if he has not succeeded — poor boy ! — in putting on 
the stage what was in his heart. When he sees that you do 
feel for him, it will be different. Oh, Armorel !” — the tears rose 
to her eyes — “ you cannot know what that play has been to both 
of us. We have talked over every situation ; we have rehearsed 
all the dialogue. I know it by heart, I think. I could recite the 
whole of it, straight through. We have cried over it and laughed 
over it. I have dressed dolls for all the parts, and one of us 
made them act while the other read the play. And, after all, to 


244 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


be told that it is worthless ! Oh ! it is a shame — it is a shame ! 
And it isn’t worthless. It is a great, a beautiful play. It is full 
of tenderness, and of strength as well.” 

“ Let us go at once, Effie.” 

“ What a good thing it was for me that the head of the Head- 
ing-Room sent me to you ! I little thought I was going to 
make such a friend” (she took Armorel’s hand). “We had no 
friends. Yes, there was one, but he is no true friend. We have 
had no friends at all, and we thought to make our way without 
any.” 

“You came to London to conquer the world — such a great 
giant of a world — you and your brother, Jack the Giant Killer.” 

“ Ah ! But we had read, somewhere, that the world is a good- 
natured giant. He only asks to be amused. If you make him 
laugh or cry, and forget, somehow, his own troubles — the world 
is full of troubles — he will give in at once. Archie was going 
to make him laugh and cry ; I was going to tickle him with 
pretty rhymes. But you may play for him, act for him, dance 
for him, paint for him, sing for him, make stories for him — any- 
thing that you will, and he will be subdued. That is what we 
read, and we keep on repeating this assurance to each other, but 
as yet we have not got very far. The great difficulty seems to 
be to make him look at you and listen to you.” 

“ My dear, you shall succeed.” 

The young dramatist was sitting at his table, as melancholy as 
Keats might have been after the Quarterly Review's belaboring. 
He looked wretched ; there was no pretence at anything else ; 
it was unmitigated wretchedness. Despair sat upon his counte- 
nance, visible for all to see ; his hair had not apparently been 
brushed, nor his collar changed, since the misery began ; he 
seemed to have gone to bed in his clothes. Trouble does thus 
affect many men. It attacks even their clothes as well as their 
hair and their minds. The manuscript was lying on the table 
before him, but the pen was dry ; he had no longer any heart to 
correct the worthless thing. It was the hour of his deepest de- 
jection. The day before he had plucked up a little courage ; per- 
haps the critic was wrong ; to-day all was blackness. 

“ Here is Armorel, Archie !” cried Effie, with the assumption 
of cheerfulness. 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


245 


“ I have come to ask a favor,” said Armorel, taking the hand 
that was mechanically extended. “ I hear that your play is fin- 
ished, and I am told that it is a beautiful play.” 

“ No — it isn’t,” said the author. 

“ And that an unkind critic has said horrid and unkind things 
about it ; and I want to read it, if I may. Oh ! I am not a great 
critic ; but, indeed, Archie, I have some feeling for art and for 
things beautiful. May I read it ?” 

“ The play is perfectly worthless,” he replied, sternly, but with 
signs of softening. “ It is only a waste of time to read it. Bet- 
ter throw it behind the fire.” He seized the manuscript as he 
spoke, but he did not throw it behind the fire. 

“ Is your critic a dramatist ?” 

“ No : he has never written a play that I know of. But he is 
a great authority. Everybody would acknowledge that.” 

“ A critic who has never written a play may very easily make 
mistakes,” said Armorel. “You have only to read the critiques 
of pictures in the papers written by men who cannot paint. 
They are full of mistakes.” 

“ This man would not make a mistake, would he, Effie ?” 

“ Well, dear, I think he might ; and, besides, remember what 
he said at the conclusion.” Armorel sat down. “ Now,” she 
said, “tell me first what the play is about, and then read it, or 
let Effie read it. I am sure she will read it a great deal better 
than you.” 

He hesitated. He was ashamed to show his miserable work 
to a second critic. And yet he longed *to have another opinion, 
because, when he came to think about it, he could not under- 
stand why the thing could be called worthless. 

He yielded. He read, with faltering accents, the scenario which 
he had prepared with so much pride. Now it was like unrolling 
a canvas daubed for the scenery of Richardson’s Show. He took 
no more pride in it. 

“ Oh !” cried Armorel, interrupting. “ This seems to me a very 
fine situation.” 

“ My critic said that some of the situations were fine.” 

He went on to the end, without further interruption. 

“ Now, Effie,” said Armorel, “ you will read it aloud while 
your brother plays it with his dolls. Then I am sure to catch the 
points.” 


240 


armorel of lyonesse. 


Archie sat up, and began to place his dolls while Effie read. 

He was so expert in manipulating his puppets that he made 
them actually represent the piece, changing the groups every 
moment ; while Effie, dropping the manuscript, folded her arms 
and recited the play, watching Armorel's face. 

This was quite another kind of critic. It was such a critic as 
the playwright loves when he sits in his box and watches the peo- 
ple in the house — a face which is easily moved to laughter or to 
tears, which catches the points and feels the story. There are 
thousands of such faces in every theatre every night. It is for 
them that the play is written, and not for the critic, who comes 
to show his superiority by picking out faults and watching for 
slips. For two hours, not pausing for the division of the acts, 
Effie went on, her soft voice rising and falling, the passion in- 
dicated but repressed ; and Archie watched and moved his 
groups, and the audience of one sat motionless, but not un- 
moved. 

“ What ?” she cried, springing to her feet and clasping her hands. 
It is easy for this fine gesture to become theatrical and unreal, 
but Armorel was never unreal. “ He dared to call this splendid 
play — this glorious play — oh, this beautiful, sweet, and noble 
play—” Here Archie’s eyes began to fill and his lips to quiver ; 
he was but a young dramatist, and of praise he had as yet had 
none — “ he dared to call this worthless ?” 

“ He said it was utterly worthless,” said Effie. 

“ He said,” Archie added, “ that the language was wholly un- 
fitted for the stage. And then — then — after he’d said that, he 
offered to give me fifty pounds for it.” 

“ Fifty pounds for a play quite worthless ?” 

“ On the condition that he was to bring it out himself, if he 
pleased, under his own name.” 

“ Oh ! but this is monstrous ! Can there be,” asked Armorel, 
thinking of the pictures, “ two such men in London ?” 

“ If I would let him call it his own ! He wants to take my 
play — mine — to do what he likes with it — to bring it out as if it 
were his own ! Never, never ! I would rather starve first.” 

“ What, did you tell him ?” 

“ He said that he would wait for an answer. I have sent him 
none as yet.” 

“ When you do,” said Armorel, “ let there be no hesitation or 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


247 


possibility of mistaking. Oh ! if I could tell you a tiling that 
I know !” 

“ I will put it quite plainly. Effie, am I the same man ? I 
feel transformed. What a difference it makes only to think that, 
perhaps, after all, one is not such a dreadful failure !” In fact, 
he looked transformed. The trouble had gone out of him — out 
of his face — out of his hair — out of his clothes — out of his atti- 
tude. Armorel eveu fancied that his limp, day-before-yester- 
day’s collar had become white and starched again.. That may 
have been mere fancy, but joy certainly produces very strange 
effects. 

“ I would have sent an answer before,” he said, “ but it is so 
unlucky for Effie. This great man — this critic — is the only edi- 
tor who would ever take her verses. And now, of course, he will 
be offended, and will never take any more.” 

“ He shall not have any more,” said Effie, with red cheeks. 

“ Oh ! But that would be horribly mean. Well, Archie, I will 
begin by taking advice. I know a dramatic critic — his name is 
Stephenson. I will ask him what you should do next, and I will 
ask him about your verses, Effie, too — those verses which you 
are always going to show me.” 

“ I tell her,” said her brother, “ that she will easily find an- 
other editor. You would say so too, if you were to see her 
verses. I am always telling her she ought to show them to 
you.” 

The poet blushed. “ Some day, perhaps, when I am very 
courageous.” 

“ No — to-day.” Archie opened a drawer, and took out a manu- 
script book bound in limp brown leather. “ I will read you one,” 
he said. 

“ Of course, you will say kind things,” said the poet. “ But 
you cannot deceive me, Armorel. I shall tell by your eyes and 
by your face if you really like my rhymes.” 

“ Well, I will read one, and I will lend you the volume, and 
then you will see whether Effie hasn’t got her gifts as well as 
anybody else.” 

He turned over the pages, selected a poem, and read it. The 
lines showed, first of all, the command that comes of long and 
constant practice ; and, next, they were sweet, simple, and pure 
in tone. 


248 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ Strange !” said Armorel. “ I seem to have heard something 
like them before — a phrase, perhaps. Where did I read only the 
other day ? . . . Never mind. But, Effie, this is no ordinary 
girl’s verse.” 

“ Oh ! you really like it ?” 

“ Of course I like it. But it is so strange — I seemed to know 
the style. May I borrow the whole volume ? I will be very care- 
ful with it. Thank you. I will carry it home with me. And 
now — I have thought of a plan. Listen, Archie. You know 
that many young dramatists bring out their pieces first at a mati- 
nee. Now, suppose that you read your piece, Archie, in my rooms 
in the evening. Should you like to do so ?” 

“ I read badly,” he said. “ Could Effie read or recite it ?” 

“ The very thing. Bring your dolls along and arrange your 
groups, while Effie recites. You will do that, Effie?” 

“ 1 will do anything that will help Archie.” 

“Very well, then. We will get an evening fixed as soon as 
possible. I fear we shall have to wait a week, at least. I will 
get my dramatic critic and a few more people, and we will have 
a private performance of our own. And then we shall defy this 
critic who said the piece was worthless, and then wanted to buy 
it and bring it out as his own. I could not have believed,” 
she added, “ that there were two such impudent pretenders and 
liars to be found in the whole of London.” 

“Two?” asked Effie, changing color. “There can be only 
one.” 


CHAPTER XIV. 

AN HONORABLE PROPOSAL. 

At the same time Mr. Alec Feilding, whose ears ought to have 
been burning, was engaged in a serious conversation in his own 
studio with Armorel’s companion. The conversation took the 
form of reproach. “ I expected,” he said — “ I had a right to 
expect — greater devotion — more attention to business. It was 
not for play that yon undertook the charge of this girl. How 
long have you been with her? Three months? And no more 
influence with her than when you began.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


249 


“ Not a bit more,” Mrs. Elstree replied. She had, of course, 
taken the most comfortable chair by the fire. “ Not a bit, my 
dear Alec. What is more, I never shall have any influence over 
her. A society girl I could manage. I know what she wants, 
and how she looks at things. With such a girl as Armorel I am 
powerless.” 

“ She is a woman, I suppose.” He occupied a commanding 
position on his own hearthrug, towering above his visitor, but yet 
he did not command her. 

“ Therefore, you think, open to flattery and artful wiles. She 
is a woman, and yet, strange to say, not open to flattery.” 

“ Rubbish ! It is because you are too stupid or too careless to 
find out the weak point.” 

“ To return, Alec. I have failed. I have no influence at all 
upon this girl. I have spent hours and hours in singing your 
praise. I have enlarged upon the absolute necessity of giving 
you a rest from business cares. I have proposed that she and I 
together — that was the way I put it — should buy a share in the 
paper, and that she should advance my half. Oh ! I grew elo- 
quent on the glory that two women thus coming to the relief of 
a man like yourself would achieve in after-years. I tried to speak 
from my heart, Alec.” The woman caught his hand, but he 
drew it away. “ Oh ! you deserve no help. You are hard- 
hearted, and you are selfish ; you have broken every promise 
you have made me ; you spend everything in selfish pleasures ; 
you leave me almost without assistance — ” 

“ When I have got you into the easiest and most luxurious 
berth that can be imagined ; when I have asked you for nothing 
but a simple — ” 

“ Yes, dear Alec ; but you see that an honest acknowledgment 
would be worth all this goodness. Well, I say that I spoke from 
my heart, because in spite of all 1 was proud of my man — -mine, 
yes, though Philippa still imagines, poor wretch ! — ” 

“ Do leave my cousin’s name out of it, will you, Zoc ?” he said, 
a little less roughly. 

“ I am proud of the man who is acknowledged to be the clev- 
erest man in London.” She got up and began to walk about the 
studio. She stopped before the picture. “ Do you know, Alec — 

I am not a critic, but I can feel a thing — that this is quite the 
best work you have ever done. Oh ! those waves, they live and 
11 * 


250 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


dance ; and those birds, they fly ; and the air is so warm and 
soft ! — you are a great painter. Odd ! your girl is curiously like 
Armorel. One would fancy your model was Armorel at sixteen 
or so — a lovely girl she must have been then, and a lovely woman 
she is now.” Zoe left the picture, and began to look at the 
papers on the table. “ What is this — the new story ? Is it 
good ?” 

“ To you, Zoe, I may confess that it is as good as anything I 
have ever done.” 

“You are really splendid, Alec! What is this?” She took 
up a very neatly written page in his handwriting. “Po- 
etry ?” 

“ Those are some verses for next week’s journal I think there 
is no falling off there, Zoe.” 

“ Have you got another copy ?” 

“ There is the copy that has gone to the printers.” 

“ Then I will take this. It will do for a present — the auto- 
graph original draft of the poem — or I may keep it.” 

“Zoe, come back and sit down. We must talk seriously.” 

She returned and took up her old position by the fire. “ As 
seriously as you please. It means something disagreeable — some- 
thing to do with money. Let us get it over. To go back to 
what we were saying, therefore. I cannot get you that money 
froin Armorel. And at the very word of money she refers one 
to her lawyer. No confidence at all, as between friends who love 
each other. That is the position, Alec.” She sat with her hands 
over her right knee. 

“ I must have some money,” he said. 

“ Then, as I have before remarked, Alec — make it.” 

“ If one cannot have money, Zoe, one may get credit, which is 
something just as good.” 

“ I cannot help you in getting credit.” 

“ Perhaps you can. You can help me, Zoe, by keeping quite 
quiet.” 

“ Oh ! I am always quiet. I have remained quiet for three 
years and more, while you flirt with countesses and cousins. 
How much more quiet do you wish me to remain ? While you 
marry them ?” 

“ Not quite that, my child. But next door to it. While I get 
engaged to one of them — to one who has money.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


251 


“ Not — Philippa.” 

“ No — I told you before. What the devil is the good of harp- 
ing on Philippa? You see, if I can let it be understood that 
I am going to marry an heiress, the difficulties will be tided 
over. Therefore, I shall get engaged to your charge — Armorel 
Rosevean.” 

“ Oh !” Zoe received this proposition with coldness. “ This is 
a charming thing for me to sanction, isn’t it ?” 

“ It will do you no harm.” 

“ I have certainly endured things as bad.” 

“ You see, Zoe, one could always break off the thing when the 
time came.” 

“ Certainly.” 

“And you would know all the time that it was a mere pre- 
tence.” 

“ I should certainly know that.” 

“ Well, is there any other observation ?” 

“You would make it ail open engagement — go about with 
her — have it publicly known ?” 

“ Of course. The whole point is publicity. I must be known 
to be engaged to an heiress.” 

“And it would last — ” 

“ As long as it might prove necessary. One could find an ex- 
cuse at any time for breaking it off.” 

“ Or I could.” 

“Just so. It really amounts to nothing at all.” 

“ To nothing at all !” Zoe neither raised her voice nor her 
eyes. “ Here is a man who proposes to pretend love and to win 
a girl’s affections, when he can never marry her. He also pro- 
poses to throw her over as soon as she has served his purpose. 
It is nothing at all, of course ! Alec, you are really a wonderful 
man !” 

“ Nonsense ! The thing is done every day.” 

“ No — not every day. If you are the cleverest man in Lon- 
don, you are also the most heartless.” 

“ You know that you can say what you please,” he replied, 
without any outward sign of annoyance. “ Even heroics.” 

“But,” she said, nursing her knee and swinging backwards 
and forwards, “ we have forgotten one thing — the most impor- 
tant thing of all, in fact. My poor boy, there is no more chance 


252 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


of your being engaged to Armorel than of your entering into 
the kingdom of heaven.” 

“Why ?” 

“ Other girls you might catch : you are tall and big and hand- 
some ; and you have the reputation of being so very, very clever. 
Most girls would be carried away. But not Armorel. She is not 
subdued. by bigness of men, and she doesn’t especially care for 
a clever man. She is actually so old-fashioned — think of it ! — 
that she wants — character.” 

“ Well ! What objection would that raise, I should like to 
know?” 

Zoe laughed softly and sweetly. 

“ Don’t you see, dear Alec ? Oh ! But you must let Ar- 
morel explain to you.” 


CHAPTER XV. 

NOT TWO MEN, BUT ONE. 

Great is the power of coincidence. Things have got a habit 
of happening just when they are most likely to be useful. It is 
not on the stage alone that the long-lost uncle turns up, or the 
long-missing will is found in the cupboard. And you cannot 
invent for fiction anything half so strange as the daily coinci- 
dence of common life. A tolerably long experience of the com- 
mon life has convinced me of this great truth. Therefore, the 
coincidence which happened to Armorel on the very day when 
the young dramatist unfolded his griefs will not, by wise men, 
be thought at all strange. 

It was in the evening. She was sitting with her companion, 
thinking over Archie and his play. Was it really good ? Was 
it good enough to hold the stage, and to command the attention 
of the audience ? To her it seemed a singularly beautiful, po- 
etical, and romantic piece. But Armorel was of lowly and hum- 
ble mind. She knew that she had no experience in things dra- 
matic. Had it been a picture, now — 

“ Oh !” cried her companion, suddenly starting upright in the 
cushioned chair where she was lying apparently asleep, “ I had 
almost forgotten. My dear, I have got a present for you.” 


If you are the cleverest man in London, you are also the most heartless. 
















ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


253 


“ From yourself, Zoe ?” 

“ Yes — from myself. It is a present which cost me nothing, 
but is worth a good deal. The making of it cost nobody any- 
thing. Yet it is a very precious thing. The material of which 
it is made is worth nothing. Yet the thing is worth anything 
you please.” 

“ It must be a picture, then.” 

“ It is a work of art, but not a picture. Guess again.” 

“No; I will not guess any more. May I have it without guess- 
ing?” 

Zoe held in her hands a small roll of blue paper. This she 
now opened, and gazed at the writing upon it with idolatry; but 
it hardly carried conviction with it — perhaps it was a little over- 
done. 

“ Least imaginative of girls,” she said. It pleased her to con- 
sider Armorel’s refusal to join in that little scheme of hers as 
proving a lack of imagination. “ I have brought you, though you 
do not deserve it, what any other girl in London would give — 
would give — a dance, perhaps, to obtain, and you shall have it 
for nothing.” 

“ I want to hear what it is.” 

“ It is nothing less, Armorel, nothing less — I got it to-day from 
the table in his studio — than an autograph. It is the copy used 
by the printers — an autograph poem of Alec’s ! An autograph 
poem, as yet unpublished.” 

“Is that all?” replied the least imaginative of girls. “You 
must not give it to me, really. You will value it far more than I 
shall. Besides, I suppose it is to be published some day.” 

“But the original manuscript — the autograph poem, dear 
child ! Don’t you know the value of such a thing ? Take 
it. You shall be enriched in spite of yourself. Take it and 
put it aside somewhere in your desk, in some safe place. 
Heavens ! If one had the autograph of a poem of Byron’s, for 
example !” 

“ Mr. Feilding is not Byron,” said Armorel, coldly. “ He may 
write pretty feminine verses, but he is not Byron. Thank you, 
however. I will take it, and I will keep it and value it because 
you think it valuable. I do not suppose the autograph verses of 
small poets are worth keeping ; but still — as you value it — ” 

This was very ungracious and ungrateful. But she was really 


254 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


tired of Mr. Feilding’s praises, and after the discovery of the 
pictures, and after the strange story she had heard only that 
morning — no ; she wanted to hear no more, for the present, of 
the praises of this man — .the cleverest man in London ! 

However, she unrolled the paper, and began to read the con- 
tents, at first carelessly. Then, “ Oh ! what is this ?” she cried. 

“ What is what ?” asked Mrs. Elstree. 

“ This is a copy.” 

They were the same words she had used concerning the pict- 
ures. She remembered this, and a strange suspicion seized her. 
“ A copy,” she repeated, wondering. 

“A copy ? Not at all. They are the verses which are to ap- 
pear in the next number of the journal — or the number after 
next. Alec’s own verses, of course. Sweetly pretty, I think. 
What makes you think that they are copied ?” 

“ I thought that I had seen them — something like them — 
somewhere before.” She went on reading. As she read she re- 
membered the lines more clearly. 

“ What is the matter, Armorel ?” asked Zoe. What makes 
you look so fierce ? Heaven help your husband when you look 
like that !” 

“ Did I look fierce ? It must have been something that I re- 
membered. Yes, that was it.” 

“ May I read the verses again ?” Zoe read them suspiciously. 
There was something in them which had startled Armorel. 
What was it ? She could see nothing to account for this emo- 
tion. Certainly she was not fond of poetry, and failed to 
appreciate the fine turns and subtle tones, the felicitous phrases, 
and the unexpected thought with which the poet delights his 
readers. In this little poem she could find nothing but a few 
jingling rhymes. Why should Armorel behave so strangely? 

“ What is it, my dear ?” she asked again. 

“ Something I remembered — nothing of any importance.” 

“ Armorel, has Alec said anything to you ? Has he — has he 
wanted to make love to you ? Has he offended you by speaking ?” 

“ No. There has been no question of love-making between 
us, and there never will be.” 

“ One cannot say.” Zoe looked at the matter from experi- 
ence. “One can never say. Men are strange creatures; and 
Alec certainly thinks a great deal of you.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


255 


“ I cannot imagine his making love — any more than I can im- 
agine his painting a picture or writing a poem. Perhaps he 
would make love as he paints.” 

“Well, he paints very well.” 

“Very well indeed, I dare say.” She got up. I am going 
to leave you to-night, Zoe. I want to go to my own room. I have 
things to write. You don’t mind ?” 

“ My dear child, mind ! Of course, one would rather have 
your company. But, since you must leave me ” — she sank back 
in her chair with a sigh. “Give me that book, dear — if you 
please — the French novel. When one has been married one 
can read French novels without trying to conceal the fact. 
They are mostly wicked, and sometimes witty. Not always. 
Good-night, dear. I shall not expect you back this evening.” 

Armorel, in her own room, opened the manuscript book of 
poems which Archie had given her, and found— the very last of 
all — the lines which she had remembered. She laid the precious 
autograph beside Effie’s poem. Word for word — comma for 
comma — they were exactly the same. There was not the slight- 
est difference. And again Armorel thought of the two pictures. 

Then she thought of the little dainty volume in white parch- 
ment containing the Second Series of “ Voice and Echo, by Alec 
Feilding.” She had tossed it aside, impatient with the man, 
when Zoe gave it to her. Now she looked for it, and found it 
after a little search. She opened it side by side with Effie's 
manuscript book. Presently she found the page in Effie’s book 
which corresponded with the first page of the printed volume. 
There were about thirty or forty poems in the little book ; in 
the manuscript book there were double that number; but the 
same poems followed each other one after the other in the same 
order, and without the difference of a single word, both in book 
and manuscript. 

This discovery justifies my remarks about the common coin- 
cidences of daily life. 

Again Armorel remembered that Zoe possessed another vol- 
ume — the First Series of “Voice and Echo, by Alec Feilding.” 
It was lying — she had seen it in the afternoon — in the drawing- 
room. She went in search of it, and returned without waking 
her companion, who had apparently fallen asleep over her novel. 

As a matter of fact, Mrs. Elstree was not sleeping. She was 


256 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


broad awake, but she was curious. She desired to know what 
it all meant ; why Armorel was suddenly struck with hardness, 
why her cheek burned and her eyes flashed, and what she want- 
ed in the drawing-room. She perceived that Armorel had come 
in search of Alec’s first volume of verse. Oh ! Alec’s first vol- 
ume of verse. Now — what might Armorel want with that book? 

At the end of March it is light at about half-past five. Ev- 
erybody is then in their soundest sleep. But at that hour Mrs. 
Elstree came softly out of her bedroom, wrapped in a dressing- 
gown, her feet in soft slippers of white wool, and looked at the 
books and papers on the table in Armorel’s room. There was a 
manuscript volume of verse, professing to be by one Effie Wil- 
mot. There were also two printed little volumes, bound in 
wliite-and-gold, containing verses by one Alec Feilding. Strange 
and wonderful ! The verses in both books were exactly the 
same ! Mrs. Elstree returned to bed thoughtful. 

Armorel, for her part, when she returned to her own room, 
compared the first series of poems, as she had compared the 
second, with the manuscript book. And the first series, too, 
word for word, was the same as the earlier poems in the book. 

“ Good heavens !” cried Armorel. “ The man steals his verses 
as he steals his pictures ! Poor Effie ! She is as bad as Rol- 
and !” 

This was Thought the First. One has already seen how the 
three Thoughts treated her before. This time it was just the 
same. Thought the Second came next, and began to argue. A 
very capable logician is Thought the Second, once distinguished 
for what Oxford men call science. If, said Thought the Second, 
the manuscript and the volumes agree, it seems to show that 
Effie has copied the latter into her own book, and now tries to 
pass the poems off as her own. Such things have been done. 
If this was the case — and why not? — Effie would be, indeed, a 
girl full of deceit and desperately wicked. But, then, how came 
Effie to have in her volume a poem hitherto unpublished, which 
was lying on Mr. Feilding’s table ? Yet, surely, it was quite as 
probable that the girl should deceive her as that the man should 
deceive the world. 

Next. Thought the Third. This sage remarked, calmly, 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


257 


“ The man is full of villainy. He has deceived the world in the 
matter of the pictures. Why not, also, in the matter of the po- 
ems ? But let us consider the character of the verses. Take 
internal evidence.” Then Armorel read the whole series right 
through in the two little printed volumes. Oh ! They were 
feminine. Only a woman could write these lines. Woman- 
hood breathed in every one. Now that the key was supplied, 
she understood. She recognized the voice — eager, passionate 
— of her friend. 

“ They are all Effie’s !” she cried, again ; “ all — all. The man 
has stolen his verses as well as his pictures.” 

This discovery, when she had quite made up her mind that it 
was as true as the former, entirely fell in with all that Effie had 
told her concerning herself. She had sold her poems all to one 
editor — he was the only editor who would ever take them — and 
now she was afraid that he would take no more. Why ? — why ? 
— because — oh, now she understood all — because he wanted to 
be a dramatist in the same way that he was a painter and a poet, 
and neither Archie nor his sister would consent ! “Yes,” she 
said, “ he is, indeed, the cleverest man in London.” 

Before she went to bed that night she had devised a little 
plan — quite an ingenious, clever little plan. You shall hear 
what it was, and how it came off. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

THE PLAY AND THE COMEDY. 

Armorel arranged for the reading of the play one evening 
four or five days later. It was a short notice, but she secured 
the people whom she wanted most, and trusted to chance for 
the others. She occupied herself in the interval in arranging the 
details and leading situations for a little comedy drama of her 
own — a play of some melodramatic force, in which, as in “ Ham- 
let,” a certain guilty person was to discover by a kind of dumb 
show that his guilt was known to her. It was to be a comedy 
which no one, except herself, was to understand. You shall see, 
directly, what an extremely clever little comedy it was, and how 
effective to the person principally concerned. She said nothing 


258 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


at all about this comedy even to Effie. As for words, there 
were none. They were left to the principal character. This is, 
indeed, the ancient and original drama. The situations were, 
at the outset, devised beforehand. The actors filled in the 
dialogue. This form of drama is still kept up, and with vigor. 
When the schoolboy sets the booby-trap, or sews up the shirt- 
sleeves, or greases the side-walk — if that old situation is still 
remembered — or practises any other kindly and mirthful sally, 
the victim supplies the words. The confidence trick in all its 
branches is another form of the primitive drama, and this even- 
ing’s performance with reference to a certain person was only 
another example. You will hear, presently, what admirable 
dialogue was elicited by Armorel’s situations. 

By half-past eight she had completed the mounting of her 
piece. First, for the reading of the play she placed a table at 
the side of the room, with a space at the back sufficient for a 
chair, or for a person to sit. A reading-lamp, with one of those 
silver cowls that throw the whole light upon the table, stood at 
either end, illuminating a small space in the middle. This was 
for the manipulation of the dolls. For, though the people had 
been asked to come for a reading, Armorel had determined to 
try the experiment of a recitation, accompanied by the present- 
ment of those puppets which Effie had dressed with such care, 
and her brother manipulated so deftly. Needless to say that 
more than one rehearsal had been held. In front of the table 
she placed a semicircle of chairs for some of her audience. At 
one side of the table was the piano ; a music-stand, with a violin- 
case, gave promise of an overture. Between the music-stand 
and the table was room for a person to stand, and on the table 
a water-decanter and a glass showed that this was the place for 
the reciter. On the other side of the table, in the corner of the 
room, stood an easel, and on it a picture, with curtains arranged 
so that they could fall over and cover it up. The picture was 
lighted up by two lamps. The room had no other lights in it 
at all, so that, if these two lamps were lowered or extinguished, 
the only light would be that thrown by the reading-lamps upon 
the table. As for the picture, it was as yet unfinished, but 
nearly finished. Of course it was Roland Lee’s new picture. 
This evening, indeed, which professed to be the simple reading 
of a new play by a new writer, included a great deal more : it 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


259 


included, in fact, Roland’s return to the arena he had deserted, 
and, as you shall see, the stepping upon the stage of both the 
twins, brother and sister. When one adds that Mr. Alec Feilding 
would he one of the company, you understand, dear reader, the 
nature of Armorel’s comedy, and the kind of situation devised 
and prepared by that artful and vindictive young lady. 

“ How long will it take, dear ?” asked Mrs. Elstree, wearily 
contemplating these preparations. 

“ I should say that the play will take an hour and a half or 
two hours to recite. Then there will be a little music between 
the acts. I dare say it will last two hours and a half.” 

“ Oh, that will bring us to half-past eleven at least ! And then 
it will be too late for anything else.” 

“We don’t want anything else to-night.” 

“ No, dear. The play will be quite enough for us. I wish it 
was over. I am so constituted, Armorel, that I cannot see the 
least use in going out of my way to help anybody. If you suc- 
ceed in helping people to climb up, they only trample on you as 
soon as they get the chance. If you fail, they are a burden upon 
you for life. These two Wilmot people, for instance : what are 
you going to do with them when you have read their play and 
stuff ? You can’t get a manager to play it any the more for 
having it read. The two are no further advanced.” 

“Yes; I shall have made the young man known. He will 
be introduced. Mr. Stephenson promised to bring some critics 
with him, and you have asked Mr. Feilding to do the same. An 
introduction — perhaps the creation of some personal interest — 
may be to Archie of the greatest advantage.” 

“ Then he will rise by your help, and he will proceed to tram- 
ple upon you. That is, if the brother is like the sister. If ever I 
saw ‘ trampler ’ written plain on any woman’s face, it is written 
on the great square block of bone that Effie Wilmot calls a fore- 
head.” 

“ They may trample on me, if they please,” Armorel replied, 
smiling. 

The tramplers were naturally the first to arrive. They were 
both pale, and they trembled, especially the one who was not go- 
ing to speak. He came in, limping on his crutches, and looked 
around with terror at the preparations. One does not realize 
before the night comes what a serious thing is a first appear- 


260 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


ance in public. Besides, the strong light on the table, the ex- 
pectant chairs, the arrangement of everything, presented an as- 
pect at once critical and threatening. The manuscript play and 
the box of puppets were in readiness. 

“ Now, Archie,” said Armorel, “ it is not yet nine o’clock. 
You shall have a cup of coffee to steady your nerves. So shall 
you, Effie. After that we will settle ourselves.” She talked 
about other things to distract their thoughts. “ See, Effie, that 
is Roland Lee’s new picture. It is not yet finished. The cen- 
tral figure is myself. You see, it is as yet only sketched in. I 
am going to sit for him, but he has caught a good likeness, has 
he not ? It will be a lovely picture when it is completed, and I 
am going to give him permission to flatter me as much as ever 
he pleases. The scene is among the outer rocks of Scilly. We 
will go there some day and sail about the Western Islands, and 
I will show you Camber Rock and. the Channel, and Castle Bry- 
her and Menovawr and Maiden Bower, and all the lovely places 
where I lived till I was sixteen years of age. Are you in good 
voice to-night, Effie ?” 

“ I don’t know. I hope so.” 

“ She has eaten nothing all day,” said Archie. 

“ You are not really frightened, are you, Effie ?” The girl was 
white with nervousness. “A little excited and anxious. Will 
you have another cup of coffee ? A little jelly ? Remember, I 
shall be close beside you, with the play in my hand, to prompt. 
I like your dress. You look very well in white, dear.” 

“Oh, Armorel, I am horribly frightened ! If I should break 
down, Archie’s chance will be ruined. And if I recite it badly 
I shall spoil the play.” 

“ You will not break down, dear ; you will think of nothing 
but the play. You will forget the people. Besides, it will be 
so dark that you will hardly see them.” 

“ I will try my best. Perhaps when 1 begin — Oh ! for Ar- 
chie’s sake, I would stand up on the stage at the theatre and 
speak before all the people ! And yet — ” 

“ She had no sleep last night,” said her brother. “ I think, 
after all, I had better read it. Only I read so badly.” 

Armorel’s face fell. She had thought so much of the recit- 
ing. Then Mrs. Elstree came to the rescue. 

“ Nonsense !” she said. “ You three people are making your- 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


261 


selves so nervous that you will most certainly break down. Now, 
Mr. Wilmot, go into your own place. Set out your dolls. Here’s 
your cardboard back-scene.” She arranged it while Archie got 
himself and his crutches into the chair behind, and began to 
take the dolls out of their box. “ So. Now don’t speak to 
your sister. You will only make her worse. As for you, Effie, 
if you break down now you will be a most disgraceful coward. 
With your brother’s future, perhaps, dependent on your courage. 
For shame ! Puli yourself together !” Effie, thus rudely stim- 
ulated, and by a person she disliked greatly, lost her limpness 
and stood upright. Her face, also, put on a little color, and her 
lips stiffened. The tonic worked, in fact. Then Zoe went on. 
“ Now,” she said, “ take up your position here. How' are you 
going to stand ? Fold your hands so. That is a very good at- 
titude to begin with. Of course, you understand nothing of 
gesture. Don’t try it. Change your hands a little — so — front 
— right — left — like that. And don’t — don’t — don’t hold your 
head like that, facing the crowd. Hold it up — like this. Look 
at the corner of that cornice — straight up. Oh ! you will lower 
your head as you go on. But, to begin with, and at the open- 
ing of each act, look up to that corner. Remember, if you break 
down — ” There she stopped, and left her standing in position. 
“You will do now,” she said. 

“ Besides,” said Armorel, “ no one will look at you. They 
will all be looking at Archie’s actors.” 

The dramatist, relegated to the humble position of fantoccini- 
man, would be also in complete shade behind the table. He 
would not be seen, whatever emotion of anxiety he should feel. 
And for dexterity of manipulation with his puppets he could vie 
even with the firm of Codlin & Short. 

The noise of cups and saucers in the dining-room proclaimed 
the arrival of guests. The first to come was Roland Lee, still 
a little shy, as Alexander Selkirk might have been, or Philip 
Quarles, or Mr. Penrose, on his return to civilized society, lie 
looked about the room. Mrs. Elstree — looking resigned — and 
Armorel standing by the fire, and the two performers. Nobody 
else. And, in a place of honor, his unfinished picture. 

It looks very well, doesn’t it ?” said Armorel. “ I wish it 
were a little more complete. But it will do to show.” 

“ Are you quite sure it is wise ?” 


262 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ Quite sure. The sooner you show everybody what you can 
do, the better.” 

“ I have found a new studio,” he told her, in low tones. “ I 
have moved in to-day. It is among the old lot of men. I have 
gone back to them just as if I had only been gone for a day. 
I don’t find that they have got on very much. Perhaps they 
spend too much time smoking pipes and cigarettes and talking. 
They chaff me, but with respect, because, I believe, they think I 
have been staying in a lunatic asylum. Respect, you know, is 
due to madmen and to old men.” 

“ I hope it is the kind of studio you want.” 

“It will do. I am anxious to begin your sittings. When 
can you come ?” 

“Any day you please. To-morrow. The next day. I can 
begin at once.” 

Then came a small party of men — journalists and critics — 
captured by Dick Stephenson at the club, and bribed to come 
by the promise of an introduction to the beautiful Miss Armorel 
Rosevean. I do not think they expected much joy from the 
amateur reading of an unacted piece. It is melancholy, indeed, 
to consider that, though the preliminary and tentative perform- 
ance of the unacted play — long prayed for — has been at last 
established, the promised appearance of the great dramatist has 
not yet come off — nay, the theatrical critic weeps, swears, and 
growls at the mention of a matinee, and when he is requested to 
attend one passes it on if he can to his younger brother in the 
calling. And yet such great treasures were expected ! However, 
they agreed to come and listen on this occasion. It shall be 
put down to their credit as a Samaritan deed. 

“Dick Stephenson,” said Armorel, with an assumption of old 
friendship which filled him with pride, “ I hope you are come 
here to-night in a really serious frame of mind — you and your 
friends.” 

“We are always serious.” 

“ I mean that you are going to hear an ambitious piece of 
work. All I ask of you is to listen seriously, and to remember 
that it is really the work of a man who aims at the very high- 
est.” 

“ Will he reach the very highest ?” 

“ I do not know. But I am quite certain that there are very 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


263 


few artists, in any branch, who dare to aim high. Listen, and 
try to understand what the poet has attempted — what has been 
in his mind. Promise me this.” 

“ Certainly, I will promise you so much.” 

“ Thank you. It was for this that I asked you to-night. And 
see — here is your old friend Roland Lee.” The two young men 
shook hands rather sheepishly — the one because he had been an 
ass — a long-eared ass ; and the other, because he was not guilt- 
less of letting his friend slip out of his hands without a re- 
monstrance and so away into paths unknown. “ I hear,” said 
Armorel, with her beautiful seriousness, “ that you two have 
suffered yourselves to drift apart of late. I hope that will be all 
over now. Oh ! you must never give up the early friendships. 
Have you seen Roland’s new picture ? He has lent it to me for 
this evening. Come and. look at it.” 

“ Why,” cried one of the men, “ it is an unfinished picture of 
Alec Feilding’s !” 

Roland turned hot and red. 

“ Not at all,” said Armorel. “ This is a sketch made in the 
isles of Scilly, and in my presence, five years ago. As for the 
figure, you see it is not yet completed. I am the model. You 
remember Scilly, Dick Stephenson. To be sure, you were not 
with us when we used to go sailing about among the rocks.” 

“ I have reason to remember Scilly, seeing that you saved my 
life there, and Roland’s too. But the picture is curiously in 
Feilding’s style. Only it seems to me better than any of his. 
Old man ” — he laid his hand on Roland’s shoulder : it was the 
renewal of the ancient friendship — “ old man, you’ve done the 
trick at last.” 

Philippa came next, with her father and two or three girls. 
They, in their turn, called out upon the striking similarity in 
style. A few more people came, and it was a quarter past nine. 
But the man for whom Armorel had especially arranged her 
little comedy did not come. He was late. Perhaps he w r ould 
not come at all. 

“ We must wait no longer,” said Armorel. “ Will everybody 
please to sit down ?” 

Philippa placed herself at the piano. Armorel took out her 
violin and tuned it. First, however, she made a little speech. 

“ I have asked you,” she said, “ to come this evening in order 


264 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


to hear a play read. It is a play written by a young gentleman 
in whom I take the deepest interest. I hope greatly that it will 
succeed. But we want your judgment and opinion as well as 
our own. The play belongs to all time and to no time. The 
scene is laid in Italy, and in the sixteenth century ; but it 
might as well have been laid in London and in the nineteenth — 
only that we are more self -governed than a dramatist likes, and 
we conceal our emotions. It is a play of romance and of human 
passion. I entreat you to consider it seriously — as seriously as 
the author himself considers it. We have arranged for you a 
list of the dramatis personae, with a little scenario of each act — 
there are three — and we think that if, instead of hearing it read, 
we have it recited, while the author himself plays the piece be- 
fore us by puppets on this little stage, we shall get a clearer idea 
of the dramatic merits of the piece.” 

This speech done, everybody took up the little book of the 
play and began to read the scenario , while Armorel played an 
overture with Philippa. 

She played a Hungarian piece, one of the things that are now 
played everywhere — a quite short piece. 

When it was finished, Roland lowered the lamps beside his 
picture, and covered them with crimson shades. Then there was 
no other light in the room but that from the two reading-lamps 
on the table. Just before the lamps were lowered Mr. Alec 
Feilding arrived, with half a dozen men whom he had brought 
with him. She saw his startled face as he caught sight of the 
picture as the lights were lowered. In the twilight she could 
still distinguish his face among the men who stood behind the 
chairs. And she watched him. Then Effie, who had not seen 
the latest arrival, took her place, and the play began. 

The effect was new and very curious. The people saw a girl 
standing up beside the table — only the shadow of a girl — a 
ghostly figure in white — the spectre of a white face — two bright 
eyes flashing in the dim light. And they heard her voice, a rich, 
low contralto, beginning to recite the play. 

It is not the nervous creature who breaks down. He may 
generally be trusted. He lies awake for whole nights before the 
time arrives ; he reaches the spot weak-kneed, trembling, and 
pale ; but when the hour strikes he braces himself, stands up, 
and goes through with it. Effie had been partly pulled together, 



In the twilight she could still distinguish his face among the men who 
stood behind the chairs. And she watched him” 



. 















































































ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


265 


it is true, by the rough exhortation of Mrs. Elstree, but some 
credit must be given to her own resolution. She began with a 
little hesitation, fearing that she should forget the w 7 ords. Then 
they came back to her; she saw them written plainly before 
her eyes in that friendly corner of the cornice ; she hesitated no 
longer ; in full and flowing flood she poured forth the dialogue, 
helped to right modulation by the strength of her own feeling 
and her belief in the beauty and the splendor of the drama 
Armorel meantime watched her man. He had seen the picture. 
Now he recognized the play, and he knew the reciter. As he 
stood at the back, tall above the rest, she saw his face change 
from astonishment gradually to dismay. It was rather a wooden 
face, but it passed plainly and successively through the phases 
of doubt and certainty to that of dismay. Yes; dismay was 
written on that face, with discomfiture and suspicion. In a more 
demonstrative age he would have sat gnawing his nails ; every 
wicked man, overtaken by the consequence of his own wicked- 
ness, used formerly to gnaw his nails. On the stage of the last 
century he would have turned upon his persecutors with a 
“ Death and confusion !” before he banged off the scene. We 
no longer use those fine old phrases. On the present stage he 
would stand with straightened arms and bowed head, while the 
rest of the company pointed fingers of scorn at him, crushed 
but defiant. In Armorel’s drawing-room he stood quiet and 
motionless, trying to collect himself. He saw, first of all, Rol- 
and Lee’s new picture in the corner ; he saw Roland Lee him- 
self, no longer the negligent, despairing sloven, but once more 
a gentleman to outer view, and in his right mind. Next he ob- 
served that Effie, his own poet, was reciting the play ; and, 
thirdly, that the play was that for which he had himself made 
a bid. Thus all three — painter, poet, and dramatist — were friends 
of this girl ; and they had all three, he knew quite well, slipped 
clean out of his hands forever, and were lost to him ; and all 
three, he also knew quite well, without being told, had related 
the history of his doings and dealings with themselves. There- 
fore, while the play proceeded, his heart sank low — lower — 
lower. 

There were three acts. When the first was finished Armorel 
stood up again and, with Philippa, played another little piece, 
but not long. And so between the second and the third. 

12 


266 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


Watching the people, Armorel became aware that the play 
had gripped them, and held them fast. No one moved. The 
little space upon the table between the two lamps, where the 
puppets stood before the painted screen of cardboard, became 
a scene richly mounted : it was a garden, or a dancing-hall, or 
an arbor, or a library, just as those little books told them, and 
the puppets were men and women. We want so little of mount- 
ing to fire the imagination, if only the poet has the strength to 
seize it and to hold it by his words. Nothing, in this case, but 
a modulated voice reciting a dramatic poem, and, to help it out, 
a dozen dressed dolls, six or seven inches high, standing stiffly 
on a little stage. Yet, even when passion was at its highest, in 
the great scene of the third act, they were not ridiculous. No- 
body laughed at the dolls. That was because the showman 
knew their capabilities. When they stood in their place, they 
indicated the nature of the situation and explained the words. 
Had be tried to make them act, he would have spoiled the whole. 
They made a series of groups — tableaux vipants, poses plastiques 
— constantly changed by the deft hands of the showman, finding 
relief in this occupation for the anxiety in his soul. For he, 
less fortunate than Effie, who had grasped the cheering truth, 
could not read in the circle of still faces before him their rapt 
and magnetized condition. 

And now the end of the third act was neared. The reciter 

V 

rose to the concluding chapter. Her voice, firm and clear, rang 
out in the dim light. The younger girls in the audience caught 
each other’s hands. The “ lines ” were good lines, strong and 
nervous, rapid and yet intense, equal to the strength and inten- 
sity of the situation. 

At last the play was finished. 

“ Effie !” Armorel caught her in her arms, “ you have done 
splendidly !” 

But the girl drew back. The honors of the evening were not 
for her, but for her brother ; she stood aside. 

Armorel took the cowls from the reading-lamps, and the room 
returned to light. Then the people began all to press round 
the dramatist and to shake hands solemnly with him, to mur- 
mur, to assure, to congratulate, and to prophesy. And the loud 
voice of Mr. Alec Feilding arose as he stepped forward among 
the first and grasped the young man’s hand. 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


267 


“ Archie !” he said, with astounding friendliness, “ this is 
better than I expected. Let me congratulate you ! I have had 
the privilege,” he explained to the multitude, “ of hearing this 
play — at least, a part of it — already. I told you, my dear boy, 
that your situations were splendid, but your dialogue wanted 
pulling together in parts. You have attended to my advice. 
I am glad of it. The result promises to be a splendid success. 
What say you?” He turned to a very well-known dramatic 
critic whom he had brought with him. 

“ If you can get the proper man to play the leading part,” 
he replied, more quietly, “the play seems to me an assured 
success. Frankly, Mr. Wilmot, I think you have written a most 
poetical and most romantic piece. It is valuable, not only for 
itself, but for the promise it contains.” 

“ For its promise,” repeated Alee Feilding, blandly, “ as I 
told you, my dear boy, for its promise — its admirable promise. 
I shall not rest now until this play is produced — either at the 
Lyceum or at the Haymarket. Once more.” Again he grasped 
Archie by the hand. Then another and another followed. It 
was not until the next day the dramatist recovered presence of 
mind enough to remember that Mr. Feilding had not given him 
any advice ; that he had not said it was a work of promise ; 
that he had offered to buy it for fifty pounds and bring it out 
as his own, with his own name put to it ; and that no alteration 
of any kind had been made in it. 

When Mr. Alec Feilding stepped back, he perceived that some 
one had turned up the lamps beside the picture. He was a man 
of great presence of mind and resource. He instantly stepped 
over to the picture and began to examine it curiously. Armorel 
followed him. 

“ This is by my old friend, Mr. Poland Lee,” she said. “ Do 
you know him ? Let me introduce him to you.” The men 
bowed distantly as those who, having met for the first time 
in a crowd, see no reason for desiring to meet each other again. 
That they should so meet, with such an assumption of never 
having met before, struck Armorel with admiration. 

“ The picture is a good deal in your own style, Feilding,” 
said one of the critics. 

“ Perhaps,” replied the successful painter in that style, briefly. 


268 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ It is taken from a sketch,” Armorel explained, “ made by 
Mr. Lee while he was staying with us in the Scilly Isles. He 
made a great number at the time — which is now five years ago.” 

Mr. Alec Feilding heard this statement with outward com- 
posure. Inwardly he was raging. 

“ It is, in fact, exactly in your style,” said the same critic. 
“ One would say that it was a copy of one of your pictures.” 

“ Perhaps,” he replied again. 

“If,” said Roland, “Mr. Feilding sends another picture in 
the same style for exhibition this year, I hope that the simi- 
larity of style may be tested by their hanging side by side.” 

“Shall you send anything this year — in the same style?” 
asked Armorel. 

“ I hardly know. I have not decided.” 

The critic looked at the picture more closely. “ Strange !” 
he murmured. “One would swear . . . the same style — so 
individual — and belonging to two different men !” 

Then Roland covered his picture over with the curtain. 
There had been enough said. 

“ Now,” said Armorel, “ after our emotions and our fatigues 
of the play, we are exhausted. There is supper in the next 
room. Before we go in I want to sing you a song. I am not 
a singer, you know, and you must only expect simple warbling. 
But I want you to like the song. 

She sat down to the piano and played a few bars of intro- 
duction. Then she sang the first verse — it was Effie’s latest 
song, that which Mr. Feilding had accepted but not yet pub- 
lished. 

He heard and recognized. This third blow finished him. 
He sat down on the nearest chair, speechless. Mrs. Elstree 
watched him, wondering what was the matter with him. For 
he was in a speechless rage. Lucky for him that it was speech- 
less, because for the moment he was beside himself, and might 
have said anything. 

“ That is the first verse,” said Armorel. “ I have set it to an 
old French air which I found in a book. The words seem writ- 
ten for the music. There are two more verses.” 

She sang them through. Her voice was pleasing, though not 
strong ; she sang sweetly and with feeling, just as she had sung 
in the old days on the shores of Samson, to the accompaniment 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


269 


of the waves lapping along the white sands, and she watched 
the man whom she had been torturing the whole evening through. 
Would not even this rouse him to some word or deed which 
might proclaim him a pretender and an impostor discovered ? 
She knew, you see, that the lines were actually in type ready to 
appear as another poem by the Editor. She finished and rose. 
“ Do you like the song, Philippa ?” she said. “ I have even 
had it printed and set to music. Anybody that pleases may 
carry away a copy. I hope everybody will, and keep it in re- 
membrance of this evening. For the words are written by Miss 
Eifie Wilmot, who has recited so beautifully her brother’s play. 
We will share the honors of the evening between them. Archie, 
will you give me your arm ? Roland Lee, will you take Effie ? 
Do you like the words, Mr. Feilding ?” 

“ Very much indeed. I had seen them before you, I think.” 

“Yes? Then you recognized them. You have seen other 
poems by the same hand, I believe ?” 

“ Good-night, Miss Rosevean. I have had a delightful even- 
ing.” He retired without any supper. On his way out, he 
passed Effie. “You should have trusted me,” he whispered, 
hoarsely. “ I expected, at least, common confidence. You will 
find that I have kept my promise — and you have broken yours.” 
He passed on, and disappeared. Then they trooped in to the 
dining-room, where they found spread that kind of midnight 
refection which is dear to the hearts of those who are yet young 
enough to love champagne and chicken. And after supper they 
went back to the drawing-room and danced. Mrs. Elstree 
played to them — nobody could play a waltz better. Roland 
danced with Armorel. “ You make me believe,” he said, at 
the end of the waltz, “ that I am really back again.” 

“ Of course you are back again.” 

Then Armorel danced with the critics, and talked about the 
play ; and they all promised to go to great actors and speak 
about this wonderful drama. And so all were away at last, and 
all to bed, well content. 

“ But,” said Zoe, when the last was gone, “ what was the 
matter with Alec ? Why did he look so glum ? What made him 
in such an awful rage ? lie can get into a blind rage, Armorel — 
blind and speechless. As for that, 1 would not give a button for 
a man who could not. But what was the matter with him ?” 


270 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ Was lie in a rage ? Perhaps lie wished that he had written 
the play himself. Such a clever man as that would be sorry, 
perhaps, that anything good was written, except by himself.” 

Mr. Alec Feilding rushed down the stairs and into the street. 
He hailed a cab, and jumped into it. 

“ Fleet Street ! Quick i” 

His printers, he knew, had work which kept them on Thurs- 
day nights till long past midnight. It was not too late to 
make a correction. His paper would be printed in the morn- 
ing, and ready for issue by five o’clock in the afternoon. In 
fact, Effie received a note from him on Saturday morning : 

“ Mr dear Effie, ” he wrote, “ I send you a copy of my new number. You 
will find, on looking into the editorial columns, that I have performed what 
I promised. Not only have I accepted and published your very charming 
verses, but I have added a brief note introducing the writer as a debutante 
of promise. So much I am very pleased to have been able to do for you. 
Now, as one writer introducing another, I leave you with your public. Give 
them of your best. Let your first set of published verses prove your worst. 
Aim at the best and highest ; write in a spirit of truth ; let your Art be sin- 
cere and self-respectful. 

“ I am sorry that this note, written on Tuesday, could not contain what 
I should much have wished to add, had I known it : that your verses have 
been adapted to an old air by Miss Armorel Rosevean. You did not, how- 
ever, think fit to take me into your confidence. 

“ I cannot hope to give you more than an occasional appearance in my 
columns. I should advise you, with this introduction of mine and the creden- 
tials of being published in my paper, to send verses to the magazines. I think 
you will have little difficulty with the help of my name in gaining admission. 

“ Allow me to add my congratulations on your brother’s undoubted suc- 
cess. His play is admirable as a chamber play. It may also succeed on 
the stage, but of this it is impossible to be certain. Meantime, it is very 
cheering to find that he listens to the advice of those who have a right to 
speak, and that he follows that advice. It is both cheering to his friends 
and promising as regards his own future. I do not regret the time that I 
spent in advising upon that play. 

“ I remain, my dear Effie, very sincerely yours, 

“Alec Feilding.” 

The paper which contained the verses contained also the 
following paragraph : 

“ In place of the usual editorial verses — my editorial duties did not always 
give me leisure for the service of the Muse — I have great pleasure in insert- 
ing a set of verses from the pen of a young lady whose name is new to my 
readers. She makes her bow to my readers in this column. I venture, how- 
ever, to prophesy that she will not long remain unknown. Wherever the 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


271 


English language is spoken, before many years the name of Effie Wilmot 
shall be known and loved. This is the prophecy of one who at least can 
recognize good work when he sees it.” 

Effie read both letter and paragraph to her brother, who raged 
and stormed about the alleged advice and assistance. She also 
read them both to Armorcl, who only laughed a little. 

“ But,” said Effie, “ he never helped Archie at all ! lie gave 
him no advice I” 

“ My dear, if he chooses to say that he did, what does it 
matter ? Time goes on, and every day will make your brother 
rise higher, and Mr. Feilding sink lower. And, as to the verses, 
Effie, and your — your first appearance” — Effie turned away her 
shamefaced cheek — “why, we will take his advice, and try 
other editors. Mr. Feilding is, indeed, the cleverest man in 
London l” 


CHAPTER XVII. 

THE NATIONAL GALLERY. 

Contrary to all reasonable expectation, Alec Feilding called 
at Armorel’s rooms the very next morning — and quite early in 
the morning, when it was not yet eleven. Armorel, however, had 
already gone out. He was received by Mrs. Elstree, who was, as 
usual, sitting, apparently asleep, by the fire. 

“You have come in the hope of seeing Armorel alone, I sup- 
pose ?” she said. 

“Yes. You remember, Zoe,” he replied, quickly — she ob- 
served that he was pale and that he fidgeted, nervously, and that 
his eyes, restless and scared, looked as if somebody were hunting 
him — “ that we had a talk about it. You said you wouldn’t make 
a row. You know you did. You consented.” 

“ Oh, yes ! I remember. I am to play another part, and quite 
a new one. You too are about to play a new part — one not gen- 
erally desired — quite the stage villain.” He made a gesture of 
impatience. “ Consider, however,” she went on, quickly, before 
he could speak. “Do you think this morning — the day after 
yesterday — quite propitious for your purpose ?” 

“ What do you mean ?” he asked, quickly ? “ Why not the day 
after yesterday ?” 


272 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ Nothing. Still, if I might advise — ” 

“ Zoe, you know nothing at all. And time presses. If there 
was reason, a week ago, for me to be the reputed and accepted 
lover of this girl, there is tenfold more reason now. You don’t 
know, I say. For Heaven’s sake, don’t spoil things now by any 
interference.” 

He was at least in earnest. Mrs. Elstree contemplated him with 
curiosity. It seemed as if she had never seen him really in ear- 
nest before. But now she understood. He knew by this time 
that Arinorel had discovered the source, the origin, of his great- 
ness. She might destroy him by a word. This knowledge would 
pierce the hide of the most pachydermatous. His strength, you 
see, was like that of Samson — it depended on a secret ; it also 
now resembled that of Samson, in that it lay at the mercy of a 
woman. 

“Alec,” said Mrs. Elstree, softly, “you were greatly moved 
last night by several things — by the play, by the picture, by the 
song. I watched you. While the rest were listening to the play 
I watched you. The room was dark, and you thought no one 
could see you. But I could make out your features. Armorel 
watched you too, but for other motives. I was wondering. She 
was triumphant. You know why?” 

“ What do you know ?” 

“ Your face, which is generally well under command, expressed 
surprise, rage, disgust, and terror — all these passions, dear Alec. 
On the stage we study how to express them. We represent an 
exaggeration so that the gallery shall understand, and we call it 
Art. But I know the symptoms.” 

“ What else do you know, I ask ?” 

“This morning you are nervous and agitated. You are afraid 
of something. Alec, you know what I think of the cruelty and 
hardheartedness of this project of yours — to sustain your credit 
on an engagement which will certainly not last a month — I could 
not possibly suffer the girl to be entangled longer than that — 
now give it over.” 

“I cannot give it over ; it is my only chance. Zoe, you don’t 
know the mischief she has done me, and will do me again. It 
is ruin — ruin !” 

“ Well, then, Alec, don’t go after her to-day. Indeed, I ad- 
vise you not. You are not in a condition to approach the sub- 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


273 


ject, and she is not in a condition to be approached. I do not 
ask your reasons, or the kind of mischief you mean. I sit here 
and watch. In the course of time I find out all things.” 

“ How much do you know, Zoe ? What have you found 
out?” 

“ Knowledge, Alec, is power. Should I part in a moment, and 
for nothing, with what I have acquired at the expense of a great 
deal of contriving and putting together? Certainly not. You 
can go and find Armorel, if you persist in choosing such a day 
for such a purpose. She has gone, I believe, to the National Gal- 
lery.” 

“I must find her to-day. I must bring things to a head. 
Good heavens ! I don’t know what new mischief they may be 
designing.” 

“ Go home and wait, Alec. No one will do anything to you to- 
day. You are nervous and excited.” 

“ You don’t understand, I say. Tell me, did the men talk last 
night — about me — in your hearing ?” 

“ Not in my hearing, certainly. Go home and rest, Alec.” 

“ I cannot rest. I must find the girl.” 

“ Well, if you want her, go and find her. Alec, remember, 
if you stood the faintest chance of success with her, I think I 
should have to get up and warn her. Even for your sake I do 
not think I could suffer this wickedness to be done. But you 
have no chance — none — not on any day, particularly on this 
day — and after last night. Go, however — go.” 

When things have gone so far that assignations and appoint- 
ments are made and places of secret meeting agreed upon, there 
is hardly any place in the whole of London more central, more 
convenient, or safer than the National Gallery. Here the young 
lady of society may be perfectly certain of remaining undiscov- 
ered. At the South Kensington no one is quite safe, because in 
the modern enthusiasm for art all kinds of people — even peo- 
ple in society — sometimes go there to see embroideries and 
hangings, and handiwork of every sort. The India Museum is, 
perhaps, safer even than the National Gallery — safer, for such 
a purpose, than any other spot in the world. But there is a 
loneliness in its galleries which strikes a chill to the most ardent 
heart and damps the spirit of the most resolute lover. 

12 * 


274 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


In the National Gallery there are plenty of people, but they 
are all country visitors or Americans or copyists — never any peo- 
ple of the young lady’s own set, and there is never any crowd. 
One can sit undisturbed and quiet; the copyists chatter or go 
on with their work regardless of anything ; the attendants slum- 
ber ; the visitors pass round room after room, looking for pict- 
ures which have a story to tell, and a story which they can 
read. That, you see, is the only kind of picture — unless it be 
a picture of a pretty face — which the ordinary visitor com- 
monly understands. Not many young people know of this 
place, and those who do keep the knowledge to themselves. 
The upper rooms of the British Museum are also commended 
by some for the same reason, but the approaches are difficult. 

This use of the National Gallery once understood, the thing 
which happened there the day after the reading of the play will 
not seem incredible, though it certainly was not intended by the 
architect when he designed the building. Otherwise there might 
have been convenient arbors. 

Armorel went often to the Gallery. The English girl reserves, 
as a rule, her study of pictures, and art generally, till' she gets 
to Florence. Armorel, who had also studied art in Florence, 
found much to learn in our own neglected Gallery. Sometimes 
she went alone, sometimes she went with Effie ; and then, being 
quite a learned person in the matter of pictures and their mak- 
ers, she would discourse from room to room, till the day was all 
too short. The country visitors streamed past her in languid 
procession ; the lovers met, by appointment, at her very elbow ; 
the copyists flirted, talked scandal, wasted time, and sighed for 
commissions. But Armorel had not learned to watch people ; she 
came to see the pictures ; she had not begun to detach an indi- 
vidual from the crowd as a representative ; in other words, she 
was not a novelist. 

This morning she was alone. She carried a note-book and 
pencil, and was standing before a picture making notes. It was 
a wet morning, the rooms were nearly empty, and the galleries 
were very quiet. 

She heard a manly step striding across the floor. She half 
turned as it approached her. Mr. Alec Feilding took off his hat. 

“ Mrs. Elstree told me you were here,” he said. “ I ventured 
to follow.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


275 


“ Yes?” 

“You — you — come often, I believe ?” He looked pale, 
and, for the first time in Armorel’s recollection of him, he was 
nervous. “ There is, I believe, a good deal to be learned 
here.” 

“ There is, especially by those who want to paint — of course, 
I mean, who want to do their own paintings by themselves. Mr. 
Feilding, frankly, what do you want ? Why do you come here 
in search of me ?” Her face hardened, her eyes were cold and 
resolved. But the man was full of himself; he noted not these 
symptoms. 

“ I came because I have something to say.” 

“ Of importance ?” 

“ Of great importance.” 

“ Not, I hope, connected with art. Do not talk to me about 
art, if you please, Mr. Feilding — not about any kind of art.” 

He bowed gravely. “ One cannot always listen to conversa- 
tion involving canons and first principles,” he said, with much 
condescension. “ Let me, however, congratulate you on the 
promise of your proteges , Archie and Effie Wilmot.” 

“ They are clever.” 

“ They are distinctly clever,” he repeated, recovering his usual 
self-possession. “ Effie, as perhaps she has told you, has been 
my pupil for a long time.” 

“ She has told me, in fact, something about her relations to 
you.” 

“ Yes.” The man was preoccupied, and rather dense by 
nature. Therefore he caught only imperfectly these side mean- 
ings in Armorel’s replies. “ Yes — quite so — I have been able 
to be useful to her, and to her brother also — very useful, indeed, 
happily.” 

“ And to — to others — as well — very useful, indeed,” Armorel 
echoed. 

He understood that there was some kind of menace in these 
words. But the very air, this morning, was full of menace. He 
passed them by. 

“ It is a curious coincidence that you should also have taken 
up this interesting pair. It ought to bring us closer.” 

“ Quite the contrary, Mr. Feilding. It puts us far more widely 
apart.” 


276 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ I do not understand that. "We have a common interest. 
For instance, only the other day I accepted a poem of Ef- 
fie’s — ” 

“ Only the other day, Mr. Feilding ?” 

“ Yes, the day before yesterday. I had it set up, and I added a 
few words introducing the writer. That was the day before yes- 
terday. Judge of my astonishment when, only yesterday, you 
sang that very song, and handed it round printed with the ac- 
companiment. I have made no alteration. The verses will ap- 
pear to-night, with my laudatory introduction. Some men might 
complain that they had not been taken into confidence. But I 
do not. Effie is a little genius in her way. She is not practical ; 
she does not understand that, having disposed of her verses to 
one editor, she is not free to give them to another. But I 
do not complain, if your action in her cause brings her into 
notice.” 

Here was a turning of tables ! Now, some men overdo a 
thing. They smile too much ; they rub their hands nervously ; 
they show a nervous anxiety to be believed. Not so this man. 
lie spoke naturally — he had now recovered his usual equanim- 
ity ; he looked blankly unconscious that any doubt could possi- 
bly be thrown upon his word. Since he said it, the thing must 
be so. Men of honor have always claimed and exacted this con- 
cession. Therefore, the following syllogism : 

Mr. Alec Feilding is a man of honor : 

Everybody must acknowledge so much. 

A man of honor cannot lie : 

Else — what becomes of his honor ? 

Therefore : 

Any statement made by Mr. Alec Feilding is literally true. 

Armorel showed no doubt in her face. Why should she? 
There was no doubt in her mind. The man was a liar. 

“ The Wilmots will get on,” she said, coldly, “ without any 
help from anybody. Now, Mr. Feilding, you came to say some- 
thing important to me. Shall we go on to that important com- 
munication ?” She took a seat on the divan in the middle of 
the room. He stood over her. “ There is no one here this 
morning,” she said. “ You can speak as freely as in your own 
study.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


277 


“ Among your many fine qualities, Miss Rosevean,” he began, 
floridly, but with heightened color, “ a certain artistic reserve 
is reckoned by your friends, perhaps, the highest. It makes 
you queenly.” 

“ Mr. Feilding, I cannot possibly discuss my own qualities 
with any but my friends.” 

“ Your friends ! Surely, I also — ” 

“ My friends, Mr. Feilding,” Armorel repeated, bristling like 
the fretful porcupine. But the man, preoccupied and thick of 
skin, and full of vainglory and conceit, actually did not perceive 
these quills erect. Armorel’s pointed remarks did not prick his 
hide ; her coldness he took for her customary reserve. There- 
fore he hurried to his doom. 

“ Give me,” he said, “ the right to speak to you as your dear- 
est friend. You cannot possibly mistake the attentions that I 
have paid to you for the last few weeks. They must have indi- 
cated to you — they were, indeed, deliberately designed to indi- 
cate — a preference — deepening into a passion — ” 

“ I think you had better stop at once, Mr. Feilding.” 

There are many men who honestly believe that they are irre- 
sistible. It seems incredible, but it is really true. It is the 
consciousness of masculine superiority carried to an extreme. 
They think that they have only to repeat the conventional words 
in the conventional manner for the woman to be subjugated. They 
come ; they conquer. Now, this man, who plainly saw that he 
was to a certain extent — he did not know how far — detected, 
actually imagined that the woman who had detected him in a 
gigantic fraud one day would accept his proffered hand and 
heart the very next day ! There are no bounds, you see, to per- 
sonal vanity. Besides, for this man, if it was necessary that he 
should appear as the accepted suitor of a rich girl, it was doubly 
necessary that the girl should be the one woman in the world 
who could do mischief. He was anxious to discover how much 
she knew. But of his wooing he had no anxiety at all. He 
should speak ; she would yield ; she could do nothing else. 

“ Permit me,” he replied, blandly, “ to go on. I am, as you 
know, a leader in the world of art. I am known as a painter, a 
poet, and a writer of fiction. I have other ambitions still.” 

“ Doubtless you will succeed in these as you have succeeded 
in those three arts.” 


278 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“Thank you.” He really did not see the meaning of her 
words. “ I take your words as of happy augury. Armorel — ” 

“ No, sir ! Not my Christian name, if you please.” 

“ Give me the right to call you by your Christian name.” 

“ You are asking me to marry you ? Is that what you mean ?” 

“ It is nothing less.” 

“Really! When I tell you, Mr. Feilding, that I know you — 
that I know you — it will be plain to you that the thing is abso- 
lutely impossible.” 

“To know me,” he replied, showing no outward emotion, 
“ should make it more than possible. What could 1 wish better 
than to be known to you ?” 

She looked him full in the face. Hq neither dropped his eyes 
nor changed color. 

“ What could be better for me ?” he repeated. “ What could 
I hope for better than to be known ?” 

“ Oh ! This man is truly wonderful J” she cried. “ Must I 
tell you what I know ?” 

“ It would be better, perhaps. You look as if you knew 
something to my — actually — if I may say so — actually to my 
discredit !” 

Armorel gasped. His impudence was colossal. 

“ To your discredit ! Oh ! Actually to your discredit ! Sir, 
I know the whole of your disgraceful history — the history of 
the past three or four years. I know by what frauds you have 
passed yourself off as a painter and as a poet. I know by what 
pretences you thought to lay the foundation for a reputation as 
a dramatist. I know that your talk is borrowed — that you do 
not know art when you see it ; that you could never write a 
single line of verse — and that of all the humbugs and quacks 
that ever imposed themselves upon the credulity of people you 
are the worst and biggest.” 

He stared with a wonder which was, at least, admirably acted. 

“ Good heavens !” he said. “ These words — these accusa- 
tions — from you? From Armorel Rosevean — cousin of my 
cousin — whom I had believed to be a friend ? Can this be possi- 
ble ? Who has put this wonderful array of charges into your head ?” 

“ That matters nothing. They are true, and you know it.” 

“ They are so true,” he replied, sternly, “ that if any one were 
to dare to repeat these things before a third person I should 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


279 


instantly — instantly — instruct my solicitors to bring an action for 
libel. Remember — youth and sex would not avail to protect 
that libeller. If any one — any one, — dares, I say — ■” 

“ Oh ! say no more. Go, and do not speak to me again ! 
What will be done with this knowledge I cannot say. Perhaps 
it will be used for the exposure which will drive you from the 
houses of honest people. Go, I say l” 

She stamped her foot and raised her voice, insomuch that 
two drowsy attendants woke up and stood around, thinking 
they had dreamed something unusual. 

The injured man of art and letters obeyed. He strode away. 
He, who had come pale and hesitating, now, on learning the 
truth which he had suspected, and on receiving this unmistaka- 
ble rejection, walked away with head erect and lofty mien. He 
showed, at least by outward bearing, the courage which is awak- 
ened by a declaration of war. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

CONGRATULATIONS. 

In the afternoon of the same day Armorel received a visit 
from a certain Lady Frances, of whom mention has already been 
made. She was sitting in her own room, alone. The excite- 
ments of the last night and of the morning were succeeded by a 
gentle melancholy. These things had not been expected when 
she took her rooms and plunged into London life. Besides, 
after these excitements the afternoon was flat. 

Lady Frances came in, dressed beautifully, gracious and cor- 
dial ; she took both Armorel’s hands in her own, and looked as 
if she would have kissed her but for conscientious scruples; 
she was five-and-forty, or perhaps fifty, fat, comfortable, and 
rosy-cheeked. And she began to talk volubly. Not in the 
common and breathless way of volubility which leaves out the 
stops, but steadily and irresistibly, so that her companion should 
not be able to get in one single word. Well-bred persons do 
not leave out their commas and their full stops ; but they do 
sometimes talk continuously, like a cararact, or a Westmoreland 
force, at least. 


280 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ My dear,” she said, “ I told your maid that I wanted to see 
you alone, and in your own room. She said Mrs. Elstree was 
out; so I came in. It is a very pretty little room. They tell 
me you play wonderfully. This is where you practise, I sup- 
pose.” She put up her glasses and looked round, as if to see 
what impression had been produced on the walls by the music. 
“ And I hear, also, that you paint and draw. My dear, you are 
the very person for him.” Again she looked round. “ A very 
pretty room, really — wonderful to observe how the taste for dec- 
oration and domestic art lias spread of late years !” A doubtful 
compliment, when you consider it. “ Well, my dear, as an old 
friend of his — at all events, a very useful friend of his — I am 
come to congratulate you.” 

" To congratulate me ?” 

“ Yes. I thought I would be one of the first. I asked him 
two or three days ago if it was settled, and he confessed the 
truth, but begged me not to spread it abroad, because there 
were lawyers and people to see. Of course, his secrets are 
mine. And, except my own very intimate friends and one or 
two who can be perfectly trusted, I don’t think I have men- 
tioned the thing to a soul. I dare say, however, the news is all 
over the town by this time. Wonderful how things get carried 
— a bird of the air — a flying thistle-down — ” 

“ I do not understand, Lady Frances.” 

“ My dear, you need not pretend, because he confessed. And 
I think you are a very lucky girl to catch the cleverest man in 
all London; and he certainly is a lucky man to catch such a 
pretty girl as you. They say that he has got through all his 
money — men of genius are always bad men of business — but 
your own fortune will set him up again — a hundred thousand, I 
am told — mind you have it all settled on yourself. No one 
knows what may happen. I could tell you a heartrending story 
of a girl who trusted her lover with her money. But your law- 
yers will, of course, look after that.” 

“ I assure you — ” 

“ He tells me,” the lady went on, without taking any notice 
of the interruption, “ that the thing will not come off for some 
time yet. I wouldn’t keep it waiting too long, if I were you. 
Engagements easily get stale. Like buns. Well, I suppose 
you have learned all his secrets by this time ; of course, he is 
madly in love, and can keep nothing from you.” 







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Go, I say /’ ” 






ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


281 


“ Indeed — ” 

“ Has he told you yet who writes his stories for him ? Eh ? 
Has he told you that?” The lady bent forward and lowered 
her voice, and spoke earnestly. “ Has he told you ?” 

“ I assure you that he has told me nothing — and — ” 

“ That is, in reality, what I came about. Because, my dear, * 
there must be a little plain speaking.” 

“ Oh ! but let me speak — I — ” 

“ When I have said what I came to say ” — Lady Frances mo- 
tioned with her hand gently, but with authority — “ then you 
shall have your turn. Men are so foolish that they tell tlieir 
sweethearts everything. The chief reason why they fall in love, 

I believe, is a burning desire to have somebody to whom they 
can tell everything. I know a man who drove his wife mad by 
constantly telling her all his difficulties. He was always swim- 
ming in difficulties. Well, Alec is bound to tell you before long, 
even if he has not told you yet, which I can hardly believe. 
Now, my dear child, it matters very little to him if all the world 
knew the truth. All the world, to be sure, credits him with 
those stories, though he has been very careful not to claim 
them. He knows better. I say to such a clever man as Alec 
a few stories, more or less, matters nothing. But it matters a 
great deal to me ” — what was this person talking about ? — “ be- 
cause, you see, if it were to come out that I had been putting 
together old family scandals and forgotten stories, and sending 
them to the papers — there would be — there would be — Heaven 
knows what there would be ! Yes, my dear — you can tell Alec 
that you know — I am the person who has written those stories. 

I wrote them* every one. They are all family stories — every 
good old family has got thousands of stories, and I have been 
collecting them — some of my own people, some of my husband’s, 
and some of other people — and writing them down, changing 
names and scenes and dates, so that they should not be iden- 
tified except by the few who knew them.” 

Armorel made no further attempt to stem the tide of com- 
munication. 

“I have come to make you understand clearly, young lady, 
that it is not his secret alone, but mine. You would do him a 
little harm, perhaps — I don’t know — by letting it out, but you 
would do me an infinity of harm. I write them down, you see, 


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and I take them to Alec, and he alters them — puts the style right 
— or says he does — though I never see any difference in them 
when they come out in the paper. And everybody who knows 
the story asks how in the name of wonder he got it.” 

“ Oh ! But I do assure you that I know nothing at all of 
• this.” 

“ Don’t you ? Well, never mind. Now you do know. And 
you know also that you can’t talk about it, because it is his 
secret as well as mine. Why, you don’t suppose that the man 
really does all he says he does, do you? Nobody could. It 
isn’t in nature. Everybody who knows anything at all agrees 
that there must be a ghost — perhaps more than one. I’m the 
story ghost. I dare say there’s a picture ghost, and a poetry 
ghost. He’s a wonderful clever man, no doubt — it’s the clev- 
erest thing in the world to make other people work for you ; but 
don’t imagine, pray, that he can write stories of society. Bour- 
geois stories — about the middle class — his own class — perhaps ; 
but not stories about Us. My stories belong to the inner ring. 
Well, my dear, that is off my mind. Remember that this secret 
would do a great deal of harm to him as well as to me if it were 
to get about.” 

“ Oh ! You are altogether — wholly — wrong — •” 

“ My dear, I really do not care if I am wrong. You will not, 
however, damage his reputation by letting out his secrets ? A 
wife can help her husband in a thousand ways, and especially 
in keeping up the little deceptions. Thousands of wives, I am 
told, pass their whole lives in the pretence that they and their 
husbands are gentlefolk. Alec has been received into a few 
good houses ; and though it is, of course, more difficult to get 
a woman in than a man, I will really do what I can for you. 
With a good face, good eyes, a good figure, and a little addition 
of style, you ought to get on very well by degrees. Or you 
might take the town by storm, and become a professional 
beauty.” 

“ Thank you— but— ” 

“And there’s another thing. As an old friend of Alec’s, I 
feel that I can give advice to you. Let me advise you earnestly, 
my dear, to make all the haste you can to get rid of your com- 
panion. I know all about it. She was sent to your lawyer’s by 
Alec himself. Why ? Well, it is an old story, and I suppose 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


283 


he wanted to place her comfortably — or he had some other rea- 
son. He’s always been a crafty man. You can see that in his 
eyes.” 

“ Oh ! But I cannot listen to this !” cried Armorel. 

“ Nonsense, my dear. You do not expect your husband to 
be an angel, I suppose. Only silly middle-class girls who read 
novels do that. It will do you no harm to know that the man 
is no better than his neighbors. And I am sure he is no worse. 
I am speaking, in fact, for your own good. My dear child, Alec 
ran after the woman years ago. She was rich then, and used to 
go about. Certain houses do not mind who enter within their 
gates. They lived in Palace Gardens, and Monsieur le Papa was 
rich — oh ! rich a millions — and the daughter was sugar-sweet 
and as innocent as an angel — fluffy hair, all tangled and rebel- 
lious — you know the kind- — and large, blue, wondering eyes, 
generally lowered until the time came for lifting them in the 
faces of young men. It was deadly, my dear. I believe she 
might have married anybody she pleased. There was the young 
Earl of Sil Chester — he wanted her. What a fool she was not to 
take him ! No ; she was spoony on Alec Feilding — ” 

“ Oh ! I must not !” cried Armorel again. 

“ My dear, I’m telling you. Her papa went smash — poor 
thing ! — a grand, awful, impossible smash ; other people’s money 
mixed up in it. A dozen workhouses were filled with the vic- 
tims, I believe. That kind of smash out of which it is impos- 
sible to pull yourself anyhow. Killed himself, therefore. Went 
out of the world without invitation by means of a coarse, vulgar, 
common piece of twopenny rope, tied round his great fat neck. 
I remember him. What did the girl do ? Ran away from soci- 
ety ; went on the stage as one of a travelling company. Why, 
1 saw her myself three years ago at Leamington. I knew her 
instantly. * Aha !’ I said, ‘ there’s Miss Fluffy, with the appeal- 
ing, wondering eyes. Poor thing ! Here is a come-down in the 
world!’ Now I find her here — your companion — a widow — 
widow of one Jerome Elstree, deceased — artist, I am told. I 
never heard of the gentleman, and I confess I have my doubts 
as to his existence at all.” 

Armorel ceased to offer any further opposition to the stream. 

“ The innocent, appealing blue eyes ; the childish face ; oh ! 
I remember. My dear, I hope you will not have any reason to 


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be jealous of Mrs. Elstree. But take care. There were other 
girls, too, now I come to think about it. There was his cousin, 
Philippa Rosevean. Everybody knows that he went as far with 
her as a man can go, short of an actual engagement. Canon 
Langley, of St. Paul’s, wants to marry her. She’s an admirable 
person for an ecclesiastical dignitary’s wife — beautiful, cold, 
and dignified. But, as yet, she has not accepted him. They 
say he will be a bishop. And they say she loves her cousin 
Alec still. Women are generally dreadful fools about men. 
But I don’t know. I don’t think, if I were you, I should be 
jealous of Philippa. There’s another little girl, too, I have seen 
coming out of his studio. But she’s only a model, or some- 
thing. If you begin to be jealous about the models, there will 
be no end. Then there are hundreds of girls about town — espe- 
cially those who can draw and paint a little, or write a silly 
little song — who think they are greatly endowed with genius, 
and would give their heads to get your chance. You are a lucky 
girl, Miss Armorel Rosevean ; but I would advise you, in order 
to make the most of your good-fortune, to change your com- 
panion quickly. Persuade her to try the climate of Australia. 
Else there may be family jars.” 

Here she stopped. She had said what was in her mind. 
Whether she came to say this out of the goodness of her heart ; 
or whether she intended to make a little mischief between the 
girl and her lover ; or whether she supposed Armorel to be a 
young lady who accepts a lover with no illusions as to imag- 
inary perfections, so that a new weakness discovered here and 
there would not lower him in her opinion, I cannot say. Lady 
Frances was generally considered a good-natured kind of person, 
and certainly she had no illusions about perfection in any man. 

“ May I speak now ?” asked Armorel. 

“ Certainly, my dear. It was very good of you to hear me 
patiently. And I’ve said all I wanted to. Keep my secret, and 
get r.id of your companion, and I’ll take you. in hand.” 

“ Thank you. But you would not suffer me to explain that 
you are entirely mistaken. I am not engaged to Mr. Feilding 
at all.” 

“ But he told me that you were.” 

“ Yes ? but he also tells the world, or allows the world to be- 
lieve, that he writes your stories. I am not engaged to Mr. 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


285 


Feilding, Lady Frances, and, what is more, I never shall be en- 
gaged to that man — never !” 

“ Have you quarrelled already ?” 

“We have not quarrelled, because before people quarrel they 
must be on terms of some intimacy. We have never been more 
than acquaintances.” 

“ Well — but — child — he has been seen with you constantly. 
At theatres, at concerts, in the Park, in galleries — everywhere 
he has been walking with you as if he had the right.” 

“ I could not help that. Besides, I never thought — ” 

“ Never thought ? Why, where were you brought up ? Never 
thought ? Good gracious ! wdiat do young ladies go into society 
for?” 

“ I am not a young lady of society, I am afraid.” 

“ Well — but — what was your companion about to allow — oh !” 
Lady Frances nodded her head — “ Oh ! now I understand. Now 
one can understand why he got her placed here. Now one un- 
derstands her business. My dear, you have been placed in a 
very dangerous position — most dangerous. Your guardians or 
lawyers are very much to blame. And you really never sus- 
pected anything?” 

“ How should I suspect ? I was always told that Mr. Feilding 
was not the man to begin that kind of thing.” 

“ Were you ? Your companion told you that, I suppose ?” 

“ Oh ! I suppose so. There seems a horrid network of decep- 
tion all about me, Lady Frances.” Armorel rose, and her visitor 
followed her example. “ You have put a secret into my hands. 
I shall respect it. Henceforth, I desire but one more interview 
with this man. Oh ! he is all lies — through and through. There 
is no part of him that is true.” 

“ Nonsense, my dear. You take things too seriously. We 
all have our little reservations, and some deceptions are neces- 
sary. When you get to my age you will understand. Why 
won’t you marry the man ? He is young ; his manners are pret- 
ty good ; he is a man of the world ; he is really clever ; he is 
quite sure to get on, particularly if his wife help him. He means 
to get on. He is the kind of man to get on. You see he is 
clever enough to take the credit of other people’s work ; to make 
others work for you is the first rule in the art of getting on. 
Oh ! he will do. I shall live to see him made a baronet, and in 


286 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


the next generation his son will marry money, and go up into 
the Lords. That is the way. My dear, you had better take 
him. You will never get a more promising offer. You seem 
to me rather an unworldly kind of girl. You should really take 
advice of those who know the world.” 

“ I could never — never — marry Mr. Feilding.” 

“ Wealth, position, society, rank, consideration — these are the 
only things in life worth having, and you are going to throw 
them away ! My dear, is there actually nothing between you at 
all? Was it all a fib ?” 

“ Actually nothing at all, except that he offered himself to me 
this very morning, and he received an answer which was, I hope, 
plain enough.” 

“ Ah ! Now I see.” Lady Frances laughed. “ Now I un- 
derstand, my dear, the vanity of the man ! The creature, when 
he told me that fib, thought it was the truth because he had 
made up his mind to ask you, and, of course, he concluded that 
no one could say No to him. Now I understand. You need 
not fall into a rage about it, my dear. It was only his vanity. 
Poor, dear Alec ! Well, he’ll get another pretty girl, I dare say, 
but, my dear, I doubt whether — rising men are scarce, you know. 
Good-bye, child ! Keep that little secret, and don’t bear mal- 
ice. The vanity — the vanity of the men ! Wonderful ! won- 
derful !” 

“ And now,” cried Armorel, alone — “ now there is nothing 
left. Everything has been torn from him. He can do nothing 
— nothing. The cleverest man — the very cleverest man in all 
London !” 


CHAPTER XIX. 

WHAT NEXT? 

Roland had moved into his new studio before Armorel be- 
came, as she had promised, his model in the new picture. She 
began to go there nearly every morning, accompanied by Effie, 
and faithfully sat for two or three hours while the painting went 
on. It was the picture which he had begun under the old con- 
ditions, her own figure being substituted for that of the girl 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


287 


which the artist originally designed. The studio was one of a 
nest of such offices crowded together under a great roof and ly- 
ing on many floors. The others were, I dare say, prettily fur- 
nished and decorated with the customary furniture of a studio, 
with pictures, sketches, screens, and pretty things of all kinds. 
This studio was nothing hut a great, gaunt room, with a big 
window, and no furniture in it except an easel, a table, and two 
or three chairs. There was simply nothing else. Under the 
pressure of want and failure the unfortunate artist had long ago 
parted with all the pretty things with which he had begun his 
career, and the present was no time to replace them. 

“I have got the studio,” he said, “for the remainder of a 
lease, pretty cheap. Unfortunately, I cannot furnish it yet. 
Wait until the tide turns. I am full of hope. Then this 
arid wall and this great staring Sahara of a floor shall blossom 
with all manner of lovely things — armor and weapons, bits of 
carving and tapestry, drawings. You shall see how jolly it 
will be.” 

Next to the studio there were two rooms. In one of these, 
his bedroom, he had placed the barest necessaries ; the other 
was empty and unfurnished, so that he had no place to sit in 
during the evening but this gaunt and ghostly studio. How- 
ever, the tide had turned in one respect. He was now full of 
hope. 

There is no better time for conversation than when one is sit- 
ting for a portrait or standing for a model. The subject has to 
remain motionless. This would be irksome if silence were im- 
posed as w r ell as inaction. Happily, the painter finds that his 
sitter only exhibits a natural expression when he or she is talk- 
ing or thinking about something else. And, which is certainly 
a providential arrangement, the painter alone among mortals, if 
we except the cobbler, can talk and work at the same time. I 
do not mean that he can talk about the Differential Calculus, or 
about the relations of Capital and Labor, or about a hot corner 
in politics ; but he can talk of things light, pleasant, and on the 
surface. 

“ I feel myself back in Scilly,” said Armorel. “ Whenever I 
come here and think of what you are painting, I am in the boat, 
watching the race of the tide through the channel. The puffins 
are swarming on Camber Rock, and swimming in the smooth 


288 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


water outside ; there is the head of a seal, black above the wa- 
ter, shining in the sunlight. How he flounders in the current ! 
The seagulls are flying and crying overhead ; the shags stand in 
rows upon the farthest rocks ; the sea-breeze blows upon my 
cheek. I suppose I have changed so much that when I go back 
I shall have lost the old feeling. But it was joy enough in those 
days only to sit in the boat and watch it all. Do you remem- 
ber, Roland ?” 

“ I remember very well. You are not changed a bit, Armo- 
rel ; you have only grown larger and — ” “ More beautiful,” he 
would have added, but refrained. “You will find that the old 
joy will return again — la joie de vivre — only to breathe and feel 
and look around. But then it will be ten times as joyous. If 
you loved Scilly when you were a child and had seen nothing 
else, how much more will you love the place now that you have 
travelled and seen strange lands and other coasts and the islands 
of the Mediterranean !” 

“ I fear that I shall find the place small ; the house will have 
shrunk — children’s houses always shrink. I hope that Holy Farm 
will not have become mean.” 

“ Mean — with the verbena-trees, the fuchsias, the tall pampas- 
grass, and the palms ? Mean ? — with the old ship’s lantern and 
the gilded figure-head ? Mean, Armorel ? — with the old orchard 
behind, and the twisted trees with their fringe of gray moss? 
You talk rank blasphemy ! Something dreadful will happen to 
you.” 

“ Perhaps it will be I myself, then, that will have grown mean 
enough to think the old house mean. But Samson is a very little 
place, isn’t it ? One cannot make out Samson to be a big place. 
I could no longer live there always. We will go there for three 
or four months every year, just for refreshment of the soul, and 
then return here among men and women, or travel abroad to- 
gether, Effie. We could be happy for a time there ; we could 
sail and row about the rocks in calm weather, and in stormy 
weather we should watch the waves breaking over the head- 
lands, and in the evening I would play ‘ Dissembling Love ,’ or 
‘ Prince Rupert’s March.’ ” 

I am ready to go to-morrow, if you will take me with you,” 
said Effie. 

Then they were silent again. Roland walked backwards and 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


289 


forwards, brush and palette in hand, looking at his model and at 
his canvas. Effie stood beside the picture, watching it grow. To 
one who cannot paint, the growth of a portrait on the canvas is 
a. kind of magic. The bare outline and shape of head and face, 
the color — the soul — of the eyes, the curve of the neck, the lines 
of the lips — any one might draw these. But to transfer to the 
canvas the very soul that lies beneath the features — that, if you 
please, is different. Oh ! how does the painter catch the soul 
of the man and show it in his face? One must be one’s self 
an artist of some kind even to appreciate the greatness of the 
portrait painter. 

“ When this picture is finished,” said Armorel, “ there will be 
nothing to keep me in London, and we will go then.” 

“ At the very beginning of the season ?” 

“ The season is nothing to me. My companion, Mrs. Elstree, 
who was to have launched me so beautifully into the very best 
society, turns out not to have any friends ; so that there is no 
society for me, after all. Perhaps it is as well.” 

“ Will Mrs. Elstree go to Scilly with you ?” asked Roland. 

“ No,” said Armorel, with decision. “ On Samson, at least, one 
needs no companion.” 

Again they relapsed into silence for a space. Conversation in 
the studio is fitful. 

“ I have a thing to talk over with you two,” she said. “ First, 
I thought it would be best to talk about it to you singly ; but 
now I think that you should both hear the whole story, and so 
we can all three take counsel as to what is best.” 

“Your head a little more — so.” Roland indicated the move- 
ment with his forefinger. “ That will do. Now pray go on, Ar- 
morel.” 

“ Once there was a man,” she began, as if she were telling a 
story to children — and, indeed, there is no better way ever 
found out of beginning a story — “a man who was, in no 
sense at all, and could never become, try as much as he could, 
an artist. He was, in fact, entirely devoid of the artistic 
faculty ; he had no ear for music or for poetry, no eye for 
beauty of form or for color, no hand for drawing, no brain to 
conceive ; he was quite a prosaic person. Whether he were 
clever in things that do not require the artistic faculty, I do 
not know. I should hardly think he could be clever in any- 
13 


290 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


tiling. Perhaps he might he good at buying cheap and selling 
dear.” 

“Won’t you take five minutes’ rest?” asked the painter, 
hardly listening at all to the beginning, which, as you see, prom- 
ised very little in the way of amusement. There are, however, 
many ways by which the story-teller gets a grip of his hearer, 
and a dull beginning is not always the least effective. He put 
down his palette. “ You must be tired,” he said. “ Come and 
tell me what you think. He looked thoughtfully at his picture. 
Armorel’s poor little beginning of a story was slighted. 

“ You are satisfied, so far ?” she asked. 

“ I will tell you when it is finished. Is the water quite 
right ?” 

“ We are in shoal. Close behind us are the broad Black Rock 
Ledges. The water might be even more transparent still. It is 
the dark water racing through the narrow ravine*that I think 
of most. It will be a great picture, Roland. Now I will take 
my place again.” She did so. “ And, with your permission, 
I will go on with my story. You heard the beginning, Rol- 
and.” 

“ Oh, yes ! Unfortunate man, with no eyes and no ears,” he 
replied, unsuspecting. “ Worse than a one-eyed Calender!” 

“ This preposterous person, then, with neither eye nor ear nor 
hand nor understanding, had the absurd ambition to succeed. 
This you will hardly believe ; but he did. And, what is more, 
he had no patience, but wanted to succeed all at once. I am 
told that lots of young men, nowadays, are consumed with that 
yearning to succeed all at once. It seems such a pity, when 
they should be happily dancing and singing and playing at the 
time when they were not working. I think they would suc- 
ceed so very much better afterwards. Well, this person very 
soon found that in the law — did I say he was a barrister? — he 
had no chance of success except after long years. Then he 
looked round the fields of art and literature. Mind, he could 
neither write nor practise any art. What was he to do ? Every 
day the ambition to seem great filled his soul more and more, 
and every day the thing appeared to him more hopeless ; be- 
cause, you see, he had no imagination, and therefore could not 
send his soul to sleep with illusions. I wonder he did not go 
mad. Perhaps he did, for he resolved to pretend. First, he 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


291 


thought he would pretend to be a painter ” — here Roland, who 
had been listening languidly, started, and became attentive. 
“He could neither paint nor draw, remember. He began, I 
think, by learning the language of art. He frequented studios, 
heard the talk and read the books. It must have been weary 
work for him. But, of course, he was no nearer his object than 
before ; and then a great chance came to him. He found a 
young artist full of promise — a real artist — one filled with the 
whole spirit of art ; hut he was starving. He was actually pen- 
niless, and he had no friends who could help him, because he 
was an Australian by birth. This young man was not only pen- 
niless, but in despair. He was ready to do anything. I sup- 
pose, when one is actually starving and sees no prospect of suc- 
cess or any hope, ambition dies away, and even self-respect may 
seem a foolish thing.” Roland listened now, his picture forgot- 
ten. What was Armorel intending ? “ It must he a most dread- 
ful kind of tempation. There can he nothing like it in the world. 
That is why we pray for our daily bread. Oh ! a terrible 
temptation ! I never understood before how great and terrible a 
temptation it is. Then the man without eye or hand or brain 
saw a chance for himself. He would profit by his brother’s 
weakness. He proposed to buy the work of this painter, and 
to call it his own.” 

“ Armorel, must you tell this story ?” 

“ Patience, Roland. In his despair the artist gave way. He 
consented. For three years and more he received the wages 
of — of sin. But his food was like ashes in his mouth, and his 
front was stamped — yes, stamped — by the curse of those who 
sin against their own soul.” 

“ Armorel — ” But she went on, ruthless. 

“ The pictures were very good ; they were exhibited, praised, 
and sold. And the man grew quickly in reputation. But he 
wasn’t satisfied. He thought that as it was so easy to be a 
painter, it would be equally easy to become a poet. All the 
arts are allied ; many painters have been also poets. He had 
never written a single line of poetry. I do not know that he 
had ever read any. He found a girl who was struggling, work- 
ing, and hoping.” Effic started and turned roseate red. “ He 
took her poems — bought them — and, on the pretence of having 
improved them and so made them his own, he published them 


292 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


in his own name. They were pretty, bright verses, and pres- 
ently people began to look for them and to like them. So he 
got a double reputation. But the poor girl remained unknown. 
At first she was so pleased at seeing her verses in print — it 
looked so much like success — that she hardly minded seeing 
his name at the end. But presently he brought out a little 
volume of them with his name on the title-page, and then a 
second volume — also with his name — ” 

“ The scoundrel !” cried Roland. “ He cribbed his poetry, too ?” 

Effie bowed her face, ashamed. 

“ And then the girl grew unhappy. For she perceived that 
she was in a bondage from which there was no escape except 
by sacrificing the money which he gave her, and that w r as neces- 
sary for her brother’s sake. So she became very unhappy.” 

“ Very unhappy,” echoed Effie. Both painter and poet stood 
confused and ashamed. 

“ Then this clever man — the cleverest man in London — began 
to go about in society a good deal, because he was so great a 
genius. There he met a lady who was full of stories.” 

“ Oh !” said Roland. “ Is there nothing in him at all ?” 

“ Nothing at all. There is really nothing at all. This man 
persuaded the lady to write down these stories, which were all 
based on old family scandals and episodes unknown or forgot- 
ten by the world. They form a most charming series of stories. 
I believe they are written in a most sparkling style — full of wit 
and life. Well, he did not put his name to them, but he allows 
the whole world to believe that they were his own.” 

“ Good heavens !” cried Roland. 

“ And still he was not satisfied. He found a young drama- 
tist who had written a most charming play. He tried to per- 
suade the poor lad that his play was worthless, and he offered 
to take it himself, alter it — but there needed no alteration — and 
convert it into a play that could be acted. He would give fifty 
pounds for the play, but it was to be his own.” 

“ Yes,” said Effie, savagely. “ He made that offer, but he 
will not get the play.” 

“ You have heard, now, what manner of man he was. Very 
well. I tell you two the story because I want to consult you. 
The other day I arranged a little play of my own. That is, I 
invited people to hear the reciting of that drama ; I invited the 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


293 


pretender himself among the rest, hut he did not know or guess 
what the play was going to be. And at the same time I invited 
the painter and the poet. The former brought his unfinished 
picture — the latter brought her latest poem, which the pretender 
was going that very week to bring out in his own name. I had 
set it to music, and I sang it. I meant that he should learn in 
this way, without being told, that everything was discovered. I 
watched his face during the recital of the play, and I saw the 
dismay of the discovery creeping gradually over him as he real- 
ized that he had lost his painter, his poet, and his dramatist. 
There remained nothing more but to discover the author of the 
stories — and that, too, I have found out. And I think he will 
lose his story-teller as well. He will be deprived of all his bor- 
rowed plumes. At one blow, he saw himself ruined.” 

Neither of the two made answer for a space. Then spoke 
Roland : “ Dux femina facti ! A woman hath done this.” 

“ He is ruined unless he can find others to take your places. 
The question I want you to consider is — what shall be done 
next ? Roland, it is your name and fame that he has stolen — 
your pictures that he has called his own. Effie, they are your 
poems that he has published under his name. What will you 
do ? Will you demand your own again ? Think.” 

“ He must exhibit no more pictures of mine,” said Roland. 
" He has one in his studio. That one must not go to any gal- 
lery. That is all I have to say.” 

“ He cannot publish any more poems of mine,” said Effie, 
“ because he hasn’t got any, and I shall give him no more.” 

“ What about the past ?” 

“ Are we so proud of the past and of the part we have played 
in it,” asked Roland, “that we should desire its story pub- 
lished to all the world ?” 

Effie shook her head, approvingly. 

“ As for me,” he continued, “ I wish never to hear of it again. 
It makes me sick and ashamed even to think of it. Let it be 
forgotten. I was an unknown artist — I had few friends — I had 
exhibited one picture only — so that my work was unknown — I 
had painted for him six or seven pictures which are mostly 
bought by an American. As for the resemblance of style, that 
may make a few men talk for a season. Then it will be for- 
gotten. I shall remain — he will have disappeared. I am con- 


294 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


tent to take my chance with future work, even if at first I may 
appear to he a mere copyist of Mr. Alec Feilding.” 

“ And you, Eflie ?” 

“ I agree with Mr. Lee,” she replied, briefly. “ Let the past 
alone. I shall write more verses, and, perhaps, better verses.” 

“ Then I will go to him and tell him that he need fear noth- 
ing. We shall hold our tongues. But he is not to exhibit the 
picture that is in his studio. I will tell him that.” 

“ You will not actually go to him yourself, Armorel — alone — 
after what has passed ?” asked Eflie. 

“ Why not ? He can do me no harm. He knows that he 
has been found out, and he is tormented by the fear of what 
we shall do next. I bring him relief. His reputation is se- 
cure — that is to say, it will be the reputation of a man who 
stopped at thirty, in the fulness of his first promise and his 
best powers, and did no more work.” 

“ Oh !” cried Effie. “ I thought he was so clever ! I thought 
that his desire to be thought a poet was only a little infirmity 
of temper, which would pass. And, after all, to think that — ” 
Here the poet looked at the painter, and the painter looked at 
the poet — but neither spoke the thought : “ How could you — 
you, wdth your pencil ; how could you — you, with your pen — 
consent to the iniquity of so great a fraud ?” 


CHAPTER XX. 

A RECOVERY AND A FLIGHT. 

Amid all these excitements Armorel became aware that some- 
thing — something of a painful and disagreeable character, was 
going on with her companion. They were at this time very 
little together. Mrs. Elstree took her breakfast in bed; at 
luncheon she was, just now, nearly always out; at dinner she 
sat silent, pale, and anxious ; in the evening she lay back in her 
chair as if she were asleep. One night Armorel heard her weep- 
ing and sobbing in her room. She knocked at the door with 
intent to offer her help if she was ill. “ No, no,” cried Mrs. Els 
tree ; “ you need not come in. I have nothing but a headache.” 

This thing as well disquieted her. She remembered what 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


295 


Lady Frances had suggested-— it is always the suggestion rather 
than the hare fact which sticks and pricks like a thorn, and will 
not come out or suffer itself to he removed. Armorel thought 
nothing of the allegation concerning the stage — why should not 
a girl go upon the stage if she wished ? The suggestion which 
pricked was that Mrs. Elstree had been sent to her hy the man 
whom she now knew to be fraudulent through and through, in 
order to carry out some underhand and secret design. There 
is nothing more horrid than the suspicion that the people about 
one are treacherous. It reduces one to the condition of primi- 
tive man, for whom every grassy glade concealed a snake, and 
every bush a wild beast. She tried to shake off the suspicion, 
yet a hundred things confirmed it. Her constant praise of this 
child of genius, his persistence in meeting them wherever they 
went, the attempt to make her find money for his schemes. The 
girl, thus irritated, began to have uneasy dreams ; she was as 
one caught in the meshes ; she was lured into a garden whence 
there was no escape ; she was hunted by a cunning and relent- 
less creature ; she was in a prison, and could not get out. Al- 
ways in her dreams Zoe stood on one side of her, crying, “ Oh, 
the great and glorious creature ! — oh, the cleverness of the man ! — 
oh, the wonder and the marvel of him !” And on the other 
side stood Lady Frances, saying, “ Why don’t you take him ? 
lie is a liar, it is true, but he is no worse than his neighbors — 
all men are liars ! You can’t get a man made on purpose for 
you. What is your business in life at all but to find a husband ? 
Why are girls in society at all except to catch husbands ? And 
they are scarce, I assure you. Why don’t you take the man ? 
You will never again have such a chance — a rising man — a man 
who can make other people work for him — a clever man. Be- 
sides, you are as good as engaged to him ; you have made people 
talk ; you have been seen with him everywhere. If you are not 
engaged to him you ought to be.” 

It was about a week after the reading of the play when this 
condition of suspicion and unquiet was brought to an end in a 
very unexpected manner. 

Mr. Jagenal called at the rooms in the morning about ten 
o’clock. Mrs. Elstree was taking breakfast in bed, as usual. 
Armorel was alone, painting. 


296 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ My dear young lady,” said her kindly adviser, “ I would 
not have disturbed you at this early hour but for a very import- 
ant matter. You are well and happy, I trust? No, you are not 
well and happy. You look pale.” 

“ I have been a little worried lately,” Armorel replied. “ But 
never mind now.” 

“ Are you quite alone here ? Your companion, Mrs. Elstree ?” 

“ She has not yet left her room. We are quite alone.” 

“Very well, then.” The lawyer sat down, and began nursing 
his right knee. “Very well. You remember, I dare say, mak- 
ing a certain communication to me touching a collection of 
precious stones in your possession ? You made that communi- 
cation to me five years ago, when first you came from Scilly. 
You returned to it again when you arrived at your twenty-first 
birthday, and I handed over to your own keeping all your port- 
able property.” 

“ Of course I remember perfectly well.” 

“ Then does your purpose still hold ?” 

“ It is still, and always, my duty to hand over those rubies 
to their rightful owner — the heir of Robert Fletcher — as soon 
as he can be found.” 

“ It is also my duty to warn you again, as I have done al- 
ready, that there is no reason at all why you should do so. You 
are the sole heiress of your great-great-grandmother’s estate. 
She died worth a great sum of money in gold, besides treas- 
ures in plate, works of art, lace, and jewels cut and uncut. The 
rambling story of an aged woman cannot be received as evi- 
dence on the strength of which you should hand over valuable 
property to persons unknown, who do not even claim it, and 
know nothing about it.” 

“ I must hand over those rubies,” Armorel repeated, “ to the 
person to whom they belong.” 

“ It is a very valuable property. If the estimate which was 
made for me was correct — I see no reason to doubt it — those 
jewels could be sold, separately or in small parcels, for nearly 
thirty-five thousand pounds — a fortune larger than all the rest 
of your property put together — thirty-five thousand pounds !” 

“ That has nothing to do with the question, has it ? I have 
got to restore those jewels, you see, to their rightful owner, as 
soon as he can be discovered.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


297 


“Well — but — consider again. What have you got to go 
upon? The story about Robert Fletcher may or may not be 
true. No one can tell after this lapse of time. The things 
were found by you lying in the old sea-chest with other things 
— all your own. Who was this Robert Fletcher? Where are 
his heirs? If they claim the property, and can prove their 
claim, give it up at once. If not, keep your own. The jewels 
are undoubtedly your own as much as the lace and the silks 
and the silver cups, which were all, I take it, recovered from 
wrecks.” 

“ Do you disbelieve my great-great-grandmother’s story, then ?” 

“ I have neither to believe nor to disbelieve. I say it isn’t 
evidence. Your report of what she said, being then in her dot- 
age, amounts to just nothing, considered as evidence.” 

“ I am perfectly certain that the story is true. The leathern 
thong by which the case hung round the man’s neck has been 
cut by a knife, just as my grandmother described it in her story. 
And there is the writing in the case itself. Nothing will persuade 
me that the story is anything but true in every particular.” 

“ It may be true. I cannot say. At the same time, the 
property is your own, and you would be perfectly justified in 
keeping it.” 

“ Mr. Jagenal ” — Armorel turned upon him sharply — “ you 
have found out Robert Fletcher’s heir ! I am certain you have. 
That is the reason why you are here this morning.” 

Mr. Jagenal laid upon the table a pocket-book full of papers. 

“ I will tell you what I have discovered. That is why I came 
here. There has been, unfortunately, a good deal of trouble in 
discovering this Robert Fletcher, and in identifying one of the 
Robert Fletchers we did discover your man. We discovered, 
in fact, ten Robert Fletchers before we came to the man who 
may reasonably be supposed — But you shall see.” 

He opened the pocket-book, and found a paper of memoranda 
from which he read his narrative : 

“ There was one Robert Fletcher, the eleventh whom we un- 
earthed. This man promised nothing at first. He became a 
broker in the City in the year 1810. In the same year he mar- 
ried a cousin, daughter of another broker, with whom he entered 
into partnership. He did so well that when he died, in the year 
1846, then aged sixty -nine, his will was proved under £80,000. 

13* 


298 


4RM0REL OF LYONESSE. 


He left three daughters, among whom the estate was divided in 
equal shares. The eldest of the daughters, Eleanor, remained 
unmarried, and died two years ago, at the age of seventy-seven, 
leaving the whole of her fortune — greatly increased by accumu- 
lations — to hospitals and charities. I believe she was, in early 
life, alienated from her family on account of some real or fan- 
cied slight. However, she died, and her papers came into the 
hands of my friends Denham, Mansfield, Westbury, & Co., of 
New Square, Lincoln’s Inn, solicitors. Her second sister, Fran- 
ces, born in the year 1813, married in 1834 ; had one son, Fran- 
cis Alexander, who was born in 1835, and married in 1857. 
Both Frances and her son are now dead ; but one son remained, 
Frederick Alexander, born in the year 1859. The third daugh- 
ter, Catharine, born in the year 1815, married in 1835, and em- 
igrated to Australia with her husband, a man named Temple. I 
have no knowledge of this branch of the family.” 

“ Then,” said Armorel, “ I suppose the eldest son or grand- 
son of the second sister must have the rubies.” 

“ You are really in a mighty hurry to get rid of your property. 
The next question — it should have come earlier — is, How do I 
connect this Robert Fletcher with your Robert Fletcher ? How 
do we know that Robert Fletcher, the broker, was Robert Fletch- 
er the shipwrecked passenger ? Well ; Eleanor, the eldest, left 
a bundle of family papers and letters behind her. Among them 
is a packet endorsed ‘ From my son Robert in India.’ Those 
letters, signed Robert Fletcher, are partly dated from Burmah, 
whither the writer had gone on business. He gives his obser- 
vations on the manners and customs of the country, then little 
known or visited. He says that he is doing very well indeed ; 
so well, he says presently, that, thanks to a gift made to him by 
the king, he is able to think about returning home with the 
means of staying at home and doing no more work to the end 
of his natural days.” 

“ Of course he had those jewels.” 

“ Then he writes from Calcutta. He has returned in safety 
from Burmah and the king, whose capricious temper had made 
him tremble for his life. He is putting his affairs in order ; he 
has brought his property from Burmah in a portable form which 
he can best realize in London ; lastly, he is going to sail in a few 
weeks. This is in the year 1808. According to your story, it 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


299 


was somewhere about that date that the wreck took place on 
the Scilly Isles, and he was washed ashore, saved — ” 

“ And robbed,” said Armorel. 

“ As we have no evidence of the fact,” answered the man of 
law, “ I prefer to say that the real story ends with the last of 
the letters. It remained, however, to compare the handwriting 
of the letters with that of the fragment of writing in your leath- 
er case. I took the liberty to have a photograph made of that 
fragment while it was in my possession, and I now ask you to 
compare the handwriting.” He drew out of his pocket-book a 
letter — one of the good old kind, on large paper, brown with 
age, and unprovided with any envelope — and the photograph of 
which he was speaking. “ There,” he said, “ judge for yourself.” 

“ Why !” cried Armorel. “ The writing corresponds exactly.” 

“ It certainly does, letter for letter. Well ; the conclusion of 
the whole matter is that I believe your grandmother’s story to 
be correct in the main. On the other hand, there is nothing in 
the papers to show the existence in the family of any recollec- 
tion of so great a loss. One would imagine that a man who 
had dropped — or thought he had dropped — a bag full of rubies, 
worth thirty-five thousand pounds, into the sea, would have told 
his children about it, and bemoaned the loss all his life. Per- 
haps, however, he was so philosophic as to grieve no more after 
what was hopelessly gone. He was still in the years of hope 
when the misfortune befell him. Possibly his children knew, 
in general terms, that the shipwreck had caused a destruction 
of property. Again, a man of the City, with the instincts of 
the City, would not like it to be known that he had returned to 
his native country a pauper, while it would help him in business 
to be considered somewhat of a nabob. Of this I cannot speak 
from any knowledge I have, or from any discovery that I have 
made.” 

“ Oh !” cried Armorel. “ I cannot tell you what a weight has 
been lifted from me. I have never ceased to long for the res- 
toration of those jewels ever since I found them in the sea- 
chest.” 

“ There is — as I said — only one descendant of the second sis- 
ter — a man — a man still young. You will give me your instruc- 
tions in writing. I am to hand over to this young man — this 
fortunate young man — already trebly fortunate in another sense 


300 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


— this precious packet of jewels. It is still, I suppose, in the 
bank ?” 

“ It is where you placed it for me when I came of age.” 

“ Very well. I have brought you an order for its delivery to 
me. Will you sign it ?” 

Armorel heaved a great sigh. “ With what relief !” she said. 
“ Have you got it here ?” 

Mr. Jagenal gave her the order on the bank for the delivery 
of sealed packet, numbered III., to himself. She signed it. 

“ To think,” she said, “ that by a simple stroke of the pen I 
can remove the curse of those ill-gotten rubies ! It is like get- 
ting rid of all your sins at once. It is like Christian dropping 
his bundle.” 

“I hope the rubies will not carry on this supposed curse of 
yours.” 

“ Oh !” cried Armorel, with a profound sigh, “ I feel as if the 
poor old lady were present, listening. Since I could understand 
anything, I have understood that the possession of those rubies 
brought disaster upon my people. From generation to genera- 
tion they have been drowned one after the other — my father — 
my grandfather — my great-grandfather — my mother — my broth- 
ers — all — all drowned. Can you wonder if I rejoice that the 
things will threaten me no longer ?” 

“ This is sheer superstition.” 

“ Oh, yes ; I know ; and yet I cannot choose but to believe 
it ; I have heard the story so often, and always with the same 
ending. Now they are gone.” 

“ Not quite gone. Nearly. As good as gone, however. Dis- 
miss this superstitious dread from your mind, my dear young 
lady.” 

“ The rubies are gone. There will be no more of us swallowed 
up in the cruel sea.” 

“ No more of you,” repeated Mr. Jagenal, with the incredu- 
lous smile of one who has never had in his family a ghost, or a 
legend, or a curse, or a doom, or a banshee, or anything at all dis- 
tinguished. “ And now you will be happy. You don’t ask me 
the name of the fortunate young man.” 

“ No ; I do not want to know anything more about the horrid 
things.” 

“ What am I to say to him ?” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


301 


“ Tell him the truth.” 

“ I shall tell him that you discovered the rubies in an old sea- 
chest with other property, accumulated during a great many 
years ; that a scrap of paper with writing on it gave a clue to 
the owner ; and that, by means of other investigation, he has been 
discovered ; that it was next to impossible for your great-great- 
grandfather, Captain Rosevean, to have purchased these jewels ; 
and that the presumption is that he recovered them from the 
wreck and laid them in the chest, saying nothing, and that the 
chest was never opened until your succession to the property. 
That, my dear young lady, is all the story that I have to tell. 
And now I will go away, with congratulations to Donna Quixote 
in getting rid of thirty -five thousand pounds.” 

An hour or two afterwards, Mrs. Elstree appeared. She glided 
into the room and threw herself into her chair, as if she desired 
to sleep again. She looked harassed and anxious. 

“ Zoe,” cried Armorel, “ you are surely ill. What is it ? Can 
I do nothing for you ?” 

“ Nothing. I only wish it was all over, or that I could go to 
sleep for fifty years, and wake up an old woman — in an alms- 
house or somewhere — all the troubles over. What a beautiful 
thing it must be to be old and past work, with fifteen shillings 
a week, say, and nothing to think about all day except to try 
and forget the black box ! If it wasn’t for the black box — I 
know I should see them always coming along the road with it — 
it must be the loveliest time.” 

“ Well — but — what makes you look so ill ?” 

“ Nothing. I am not ill. I am never ill. I would rather be 
ill than — what I am. A tearing, rending neuralgia would be a 
welcome change. Don’t ask me any more questions, Armorel. 
You look radiant for your part. Has anything happened to 
you? — anything good? You are one of those happy girls to 
whom only good things come.” 

“ Do you remember the story I told you — about the rubies ?” 

“ Yes.” She turned her face to the fire. “ I remember very 
well.” 

“ I have at last — congratulate me, Zoe — I have got rid of 
them.” 

“ You have got rid of them ?” Mrs. Elstree started up. 
“ Where are they, then ?” 


302 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ Mr. Jagenal has been here. He has found a great-grandson 
of Robert Fletcher, who is entitled to have them. I have never 
been so relieved ! The dreadful things are out of my hands 
now, and in Mr. Jagenal’s. He will give them to this grandson. 
Zoe, what is the matter ?” 

Mrs. Elstree rose to her feet and stood facing Armorel, with 
eyes in which wild terror was the only passion visible and white 
cheeks. And, as Armorel was still speaking, she staggered, 
reeled, and fell forward in a faint. Armorel caught her and 
bore her to the sofa, when she presently came to herself again. 
But the fainting-fit was followed by hysterical weeping and 
laughing. She knew not what she said. She raved about some- 
body who had bought something. Armorel paid no heed to 
what she said. She lamented the hour of her birth ; she had 
been pursued by evil all her life ; she lamented the hour when 
she met a certain man, unnamed, who had dragged her down 
to his own level ; and so on. 

When she had calmed a little, Armorel persuaded her to lie 
down. It is a woman’s chief medicine. It is better than all the 
drugs in the museum of the College of Physicians. Mrs. Elstree, 
pale and trembling, tearful and agitated, lay down. Armorel 
covered her with a warm wrapper and left her. 

A little while afterwards she looked in. The patient was quite 
calm now, apparently asleep, and breathing gently. Armorel, 
satisfied with the result of her medicine, left her in charge of 
her maid, and w’ent out for an hour. She went out, in fact, to 
tell Eflie Wilmot the joyful news concerning those abominable 
rubies. When she came back, in time for luncheon, she was 
met by her maid, who gave her a letter, and told her a strange 
thing. Mrs. Elstree had gone away ! The sick woman, who 
had been raving in hysterics, hardly able to support herself to 
her bed, had got up the moment after Armorel left the house, 
packed all her boxes hurriedly, sent for a cab, and had driven 
away. But she had left this note for Armorel. It was brief : 

“I am obliged to go away unexpectedly. In order to avoid explanations 
and questions and farewells, I have thought it best to go away quietly. I 
could not choose but go. For certain reasons I must leave you. For the 
same reasons I hope that we may never meet again. I ought never to have 
come here. Forgive me and forget me. I will write to Mr. Jagenal to-day. 

“Zoe.” 


She raved about somebody who had bought something. 

















































































































































































































































■ 










































' 




ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


303 


There was no reason given. She had gone. Nor, if one may 
anticipate, has Armorel yet discovered the reasons for this sud- 
den flight. Nor, as you will presently discover, will Armorel 
over be able to discover those reasons. 


CHAPTER XXI. 

ALL LOST BUT 

Mr. Alec Feilding paced the thick carpet of his studio with 
a restless step and an unquiet mind. Never before had he faced 
a more gloomy outlook. Black clouds, storm, and rain every- 
where. Bad, indeed, is it for the honest tradesman when there 
is no money left, and no credit. But a man can always begin 
the world again if he has a trade. The devil of it is when a 
man has no trade at all, except that of lying and cheating in the 
abstract. Many men, it is true, combine cheatery and falsehood 
with their trade. Few are so unfortunate as to have no trade 
on which to base their frauds and adulterations. 

Everything threatened, and all at once. Nay, it seemed as 
if everything was actually taken from him, and all at once. Not 
something here, which might be repaired, and something there, 
a little later on, but all at once — everything. Nothing at all 
left. Even his furniture and his books, might be seized. He 
would be stripped of his house, his journal, his name, his credit, 
his position — even his genius ! Therefore his face — that face 
which Armorel found so wooden — was now full of expression, 
but of the terror-stricken, hunted kind ; that of the man who 
has been found out, and is going to be exposed. 

On the table lay three or four letters. They had arrived that 
morning. He took them up and read them, one after the other. 
It was line upon line, blow upon blow. 

The first was from Roland Lee. 

“ I see no object,” he said, “ in granting you the interview 
which you propose. There is not really anything that requires 
discussion. As to our interests being identical, as you say — if 
they have been so hitherto they will remain so no longer. As 
to the market price of the pictures, which you claim to have 


304 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


raised by your judicious management, I am satisfied to see my 
work rise to its own level by its own worth. As to your threat 
that the influence which has been exerted for an artist may be 
also exerted against him — you will do what you please. Your 
last demand, for gratitude, needs no reply. I start again, exactly 
where I was when you found me. I am still as poor and as 
little known. The half-dozen pictures which you have sold as 
your own will not help me in any way. Your assertion that I 
am about to reap the harvest of your labors is absurd. I begin 
the world over again. The last picture — the one now in your 
studio — you will be good enough not to exhibit” — “Won’t I, 
though?” asked the owner — “at the penalty of certain incon- 
veniences which you will learn immediately. I have torn up 
and burned your check.” — “ So much the better for me,” said 
the purchaser. — “You say that you will not let me go without 
a personal interview. If you insist upon one, you must have it. 
You will find me here any morning. But, as you can only want 
an interview in the hope of renewing the old arrangement, I am 
bound to warn you that it is hopeless and impossible, and to 
beg that you will not trouble yourself to come here at all. Un- 
derstand that no earthly consideration will induce me to bear 
any further share in the deception in which I have been too long 
a confederate. The guilty knowledge of the past should sepa- 
rate us as wide apart as the poles. To see you will be to revive 
a guilty memory. Since we must meet, perhaps, from time to 
time, let us meet as a pair of criminals who avoid each other’s 
conversation for fear of stirring up the noisome past. What has 
been resolved upon, so far as I — and another — are concerned, 
Miss Armorel Rosevean has undertaken to inform you. — R. L.” 

“ Deception ! Criminals !” I suppose there is no depth of 
wickedness into which men may not descend, step by step, get- 
ting daily deeper in the mire of falsehood and crime, yet walk- 
ing always with head erect, and meeting the world with the front 
of rectitude. Had any one told Mr. Alec Feilding, years before, 
what he would do in the future, he would have kicked that foul 
and obscene prophet. Well, he had done these things, and de- 
liberately ; he had posed before the world as painter, poet, and 
writer of fiction. As time went on, and the world accepted his 
pretensions, they became a part of himself. Nay, he even ex- 
cused himself. Everybody does the same thing — or, just the 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


305 


same, everybody would do it, given the chance — it is a world 
of pretension, make-believe, and seeming. Besides, he was no 
highwayman, he bought the things ; he paid for them ; they 
were his property. And yet — “ Deception ! Criminals I” The 
words astonished and pained him. 

And the base ingratitude of the man. He was starving ; no 
one would buy his things; nobody knew his work, when he 
stepped in. Then, by dexterity in the art of puff, which the 
moderns call reclame — he actually believed this, being so igno- 
rant of art — he had forced these pictures into notice; he had 
run up their price until for that picture on the easel he had 
been offered, and had taken, £450 ! Ungrateful ! 

“ Deception ! Criminals !” 

Why, the man had actually received a check for £300 for 
that very picture. What more could he want or expect t True, 
he had refused to cash the check. More fool he ! 

And now he was going absolutely to withdraw from the part- 
nership and work for himself. Well — poor devil ! He would 
starve ! 

He stood in front of the picture and looked at it mournfully. 
The beautiful thing — far more beautiful than any he had exhib- 
ited before. It cut him to the heart to think — not that he had 
been such a fraud, but — that he could have no more from the 
same source. His career was cut short at the outset, his ambi- 
tions blasted, by this unlucky accident. Yet a year or two, and 
the Academy would have made him an Associate ; a few more 
years, and he would have become It. A. Perhaps, in the end, 
president. And now it was all over. No Royal Academy for 
him, unless — a thing almost desperate — he could find some other 
Roland Lee — some genius as poor, as reckless of himself. And 
it might be years — years — before he could find such a one. 
Meantime, what w r as he to show ? What was he to say ? “ De- 

ception ? Criminals !” Confound the fellow ! The words banged 
about his head and boxed his ears. 

The second letter was from Effie — the girl to whom he had 
paid such vast sums of money, whom he had surrounded with 
luxuries — on whom he had bestowed the precious gift of his 
personal friendship. This girl also wrote without the least 
sense of gratitude. She said, in fact, writing straight to the 
point, “ 1 beg to inform you that I shall not, in future, be able 


306 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


to continue those contributions to your paper which you have 
thought fit to publish in two volumes with your own name at- 
tached. I have submitted my original manuscript of those 
verses to a friend who has compared them with your published 
volume, and has ascertained that there is not the alteration of 
a single word. S.o that your pretence of having altered and 
improved them, until they became your own, is absurd. My 
brother begs me to add that your statement made before all 
the people at the reading was false. You made no suggestions. 
You offered no advice. You said that the play was worthless. 
My brother has made alterations. You offered to give him 
fifty pounds for the whole rights in the play, with the right of 
bringing it out under your own name. This offer he refuses 
absolutely. I sincerely wish I could restore the money you 
have given me. I now understand that it was the price of my 
silence — the wages of sin. — E. W.” 

No more verses from that quarter. Poets, however, there are 
in plenty, writers of glib and flowing rhymes. To be sure, they 
are as a race consumed by vanity, and want to have their absurd 
names stuck to everything they do. Very well ; henceforth, he 
would have anonymous verses, and engage a small army of 
poets. The letter moved him little, except that it came by the 
same post as the other. It proved, taken with the evening of 
the play, concerted action. As for comparing the girl’s manu- 
script verses with the volume, how was she to prove that the 
manuscript verses were not copied out of the volume ? 

Then there was a third letter, a very angry letter, from Lady 
Frances, his story-teller. 

“ I learn,” she said, “ that you have chosen me as the fittest 
person upon whom to practise your deceptions. You assured 
me that you were engaged to Miss Armorel Rosevean. I learn 
from the young lady herself that this is entirely false ; you did 
offer yourself, it is true, a week after you had assured me of the 
engagement. You were promptly and decidedly refused. And 
you had no reason whatever for believing that you would be 
accepted. 

“ I should like you to consider that you owe your introduc- 
tion into society to me. You also owe to me whatever name 
you have acquired as a story-teller. Every one of the society 
stories told in your paper has been communicated to you by 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


307 


me. And this is the way in which you repay my kindness to 
you. 

“ Under the circumstances, I think you cannot complain if I 
request that in future we cease to meet even as acquaintances. 
Of course, my contributions to your paper will be discontinued. 
And if you venture to state anywhere that they are your own 
work, I will publicly contradict the statement. — F. H.” 

He stood irresolute. What was to be done ? For the mo- 
ment he could think of nothing. “ It is that cursed girl !” he 
cried. “ Why did she ever come here ? By what unlucky ac- 
cident did she meet these two — Roland Lee and Effie ? Why 
was I such a fool as to ask Lady Frances to call upon her ? Why 
did I send Zoe to her ? It is all folly together. If it had not 
been for her we should have been all going on as before. I am 
certain we should — and going on comfortably. I should have 
made Roland’s fortune as well as my own name — and his hand 
was getting stronger and better every day. And I should have 
kept that girl in comfort, and made a very pretty little name 
for myself that way. She was improving, too — a bright and 
clever girl — a real treasure in proper hands. And I had the 
boy as well, or should have had. Good heavens ! what losses ! 
What a splendid possession to have destroyed ! No man ever 
before had such a chance — to say nothing of Lady Frances !” 
It was maddening. We use the word lightly, and for small 
cause. But it really was maddening. “ What will they say ? 
What are they going to do ? What can they say ? If it comes 
to a question of affirmation I can swear as well as any one, 1 
suppose. If Roland pretends that he painted my pictures — if 
Effie says she wrote my poems — how will they prove it ? What 
can they do ? 

“ But things stick. If it is whispered about that there will 
be no more pictures and no more poems — oh ! it is the hardest 
luck !” 

One more letter reached him by that morning’s post : 

“ Dearest Alec, — I have left Armorel, and am no longer a companion. 
The guilt could not disguise the pill. I have, however, a communication to 
make of a more comfortable character than this. It is true that I am like 
a housemaid out of a situation. But I think you will change the natural 
irritation caused by this announcement for a more joyful countenance when 
you see me. 1 shall arrive with my communication about noon to-morrow. 
Be at home, and be alone. Your affectionate Zoe.” 


308 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


AVhat had she got to say ? At the present crisis what could 
it matter what she had to say ? If she had only got that money 
out of Armorel, or succeeded in making the girl his servant. 
But she could not do the only really useful thing he ever asked 
of her. 

He laid down the letter on the table, beside one from his 
printers — three days old. In this communication the printers 
pointed out that his account was very large ; that no satisfac- 
tory arrangement had been proposed ; that they were going to 
discontinue printing his paper unless something practical was 
effected ; and that they hoped to hear from him without delay. 

There was a knock at the door; the discreet man-servant 
brought a card, with the silence and confidential manner of one 
who announces a secret emissary — say a hired assassin. 

The visitor was Mr. Jagenal. He came in friendly and ex- 
pansive. 

“ My dear boy !” he said, with a warm grasp. “ Always at 
work — always at work ?” 

Alec dexterously swept the letters into an open drawer. “Al- 
ways at work,” he said. “ But I must be hard pressed when I 
cannot give you five minutes. What is it ?” 

“I will come to the point at once. You know Mrs. Elstree 
very well, I believe ?” 

“Very well, indeed; I knew her before her father’s failure. 
Before her marriage.” 

“ Quite so. Then what do you make of this ?” He handed 
over a note, which the other man read : “ ‘ Dear Sir, — Unex- 
pected circumstances have made it necessary for me to give up 
my charge of Armorel Rosevean at once. I have not even been 
able to wait a single day. I have been compelled to leave her 
without even wishing her farewell. Very truly yours, Zoe 
Elstree.’ 

“ It is very odd,” he said, truthfully. “ I know nothing of 
these circumstances. I cannot tell you why she has resigned.” 

“ Oh ! I. thought I would ask you ! Well, she has actually 
gone ; she has vanished ; she has left the girl quite alone. This 
is all very irregular, isn’t it ? Not quite what one expects of a 
lady, is it ?” 

“ Very irregular, indeed. Well, I am responsible for her in- 
troduction to you, and I will find out, if I can, what it means. 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


309 


She is coming here to-day she writes; no doubt to give me her 
reasons. What will Miss Rosevean do ?” 

“ Oh ! she is an independent girl. She tells me that she has 
found a young lady about her own age, and they are going to 
live together. Alec, I don’t quite understand why you thought 
Mrs. Elstree so likely a person for companion. Philippa tells 
me that she has no friends, and we appointed her because we 
thought she had so many.” 

“Pleasing — attractive — accomplished — what more did you 
want ? And as for friends, she must have had plenty.” 

“ But it seems she had none. Nobody has ever called upon 
her. And she never went into any society. Are you sure that 
you were not misled about her, my dear boy ? I have heard, for 
instance, rumors about her and the provincial stage.” 

“ Oh ! rumors are nothing. I don’t think I could have been 
mistaken in her. However, she has gone. I will find out why. 
As for Armorel Rosevean — ” 

“ Alec — what a splendid girl ! Was there no chance there for 
you ? Are you so critical that even Armorel is not good enough 
for you ?” 

“ Not my style,” he said, shortly. “ Never mind the girl.” 

“ Well — there is one more thing, Alec — and a more pleasant 
subject — about yourself. I want to ask you one or two ques- 
tions — family questions.” 

“ I thought you knew all about my family.” 

“ So I do, pretty well. However — this is really important — 
most important. I wouldn’t waste your time if it were not im- 
portant. Do you remember your great-aunt Eleanor Fletcher ?” 

“ Very well. She left all her money to charities. Cat !” 

“ And your grandmother, Mrs. Needham ?” 

“ Quite well. What is in the wind now ? Has Aunt Eleanor 
been proved to have made a later will in my favor ?” 

“You will find out in a day or two. Eh! Alec, you are a 
lucky dog. Painter — poet — nothing in which you do not com- 
mand success. And now — now — ” 

“ Now — what ?” 

“ That I will tell you, my dear boy, in two or three days. 
There’s many a slip we know, but this time the cup will reach 
your lips.” 

“ What do you mean 2” cried the young man, startled. “ Cup 1 


310 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


Do you mean to tell me that you have something — something 
unexpected — coming to me ? Something considerable f” 

“ If it comes — oh, yes, it is quite certain to come — very con- 
siderable. You are your mother’s only son, and she was an 
only child, and her grandfather was one Robert Fletcher, 
wasn’t he ?” 

“ I believe he was. There’s a family Bible on the shelves 
that can tell us.” 

“ Did you ever hear anything about the early life and adven- 
tures of this Robert Fletcher ?” 

“ No ; he was in the City, I believe, and he left a good large 
fortune. That is all.” 

“ That is all. That is all. Well, my dear boy, the strangest 
things happen ; we must never be surprised at anything. But 
be prepared to-morrow — or next day — or the day after — to be 
agreeably — most agreeably — surprised.” 

“ To the tune of — what ? A thousand pounds, say ?” 

“ Perhaps. It may amount very nearly to as much — very 
nearly. Ha ! ha ! — to nearly as much as that, I dare say. Ho ! 
ho !” He chuckled, and wagged his white head. “ Very nearly 
a thousand pounds, I dare say.” He walked over to look at the 
picture. 

“ Really, Alec,” he said, “ you deserve all the luck you get. 
Nobody can possibly grudge it to you. This picture is charm- 
ing. I don’t know when I have seen a sweeter thing. You 
have the finest feeling for rock and seashore and water. Well, 
my dear boy, I am very sorry that you haven’t as fine a feeling 
for Armorel Rosevean — the sweetest girl and the best, I believe, 
in the world. Good-bye ! — good-bye ! till the day after to- 
morrow— the day after to-morrow ! It will certainly reach to 
a thousand — or very near. Ho ! ho ! Lucky dog !” 

Mr. Jagenal went away nodding and smiling. There are mo- 
ments when it is very good to be a solicitor ; they are moments 
rich in blessing ; they compensate, in some measure, for those 
other moments when the guilty are brought to bay, and the 
thriftless are made to tremble ; they are the moments when the 
solicitor announces a windfall — the return of the long-lost na- 
bob — the discovery of a will — the favorable decision of the 
court. 

Alec sat down, and seized a pen. He wrote hurriedly to his 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


311 


printers. “ Let tlie present arrangements,” he said, “ continue 
unchanged. I shall be in a position in two or three days to 
make a very considerable payment, and after that we will start 
on a more regular understanding.” 

Another knock, and again the discreet man-servant came in 
on tiptoe. “ Lady refused her card,” he whispered. 

The lady was none other than Armorel herself — in morning 
dress, wearing a hat. 

He bowed coldly. There was a light in her eyes, and a 
heightened color on her cheek, which hardly looked like a 
friendly call. But that, of course, one could not expect. 

“After our recent interview,” he said, “and after the very 
remarkable string of accusations which fell from your lips, I 
could hardly expect to see you in my studio, Miss Rosevean.” 

“ I came only to communicate a resolution arrived at by my 
friends, Mr. Roland Lee and Miss Effie Wilmot.” 

“ From your friends, Mr. Roland Lee and Miss Effie Wilmot? 
May I offer you a chair ?” 

“ Thank you. No. My message is only to tell you this : 
they have resolved to let the past remain unknown.” 

“ To let the past remain unknown.” He tried to appear care- 
less, but the girl watched the sudden light of satisfaction in his 
eyes and the sudden expression of relief in his face. “The 
past remain unknown,” he repeated. “Yes — certainly. Am 
I — may I ask — interested in this decision ?” 

“ That you know best, Mr. Feilding. It seems hardly neces- 
sary to try to carry it off with me — I know everything. But — 
as you please. They agree that they have been themselves 
deeply to blame ; they cannot acquit themselves. Certainly 
it is a pitiful thing for an artist to own that he has sold his 
name and fame in a moment of despair.” 

“ It would be indeed a pitiful thing if it were ever done.” 

“ Nothing more, therefore, will be said by either of them as 
to the pictures or poems.” 

“ Indeed ? From what you have already told me ; from the 
gracious freedom of your utterances at the National Gallery ; 
I seem to connect those two names with the charges you then 
brought. They refuse to bring forward or to endorse those 
charges, then ? Do you withdraw them ?” 


312 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ They do not refuse to bring forward the charges. They 
have never made those charges. I made them, and I, Mr. Feild- 
ing — ” she raised her voice a little — “ I do not withdraw them.” 

“ Oh ! you do not withdraw them. May I ask what your 
word in the matter is worth, unsupported by their evidence — 
even if their evidence were worth anything ?” 

“You shall hear what my word is worth. This picture” — 
she placed herself before it — “ is painted by Mr. Roland Lee. 
Perhaps he will not say so. Oh ! It is a beautiful picture — it 
is quite the best he has ever painted — yet. It is a true picture ; 
you cannot understand either its beauty or its truth. You have 
never been to the place ; you do not even know where it is ; 
why, sir — it is my birthplace. I lived there until I was sixteen 
years of age ; it is a scene taken in the Scilly archipelago.” He 
started. “ You do not even know the girl who stands in the 
foreground — your ow r n model. Why — it is my portrait — mine 
— look at me, sir — it is my portrait. Now you know what my 
word is worth. I have only to stand before this picture, and 
tell the world that this is my portrait.” 

He started and changed color. This was unexpected. If 
the girl was to go on talking in this way outside, it would be 
difficult to reply. What was he to say if the words were re- 
ported to him ? Because, you see, once pointed out, there could 
be no doubt at all about the portrait. 

“ A portrait of myself,” she repeated. 

“ Permit me to observe,” he said, witli some assumption of 
dignity, “ that you will find it very difficult to prove these state- 
ments — most difficult — and at the same time highly dangerous, 
because libellous.” 

“No, not dangerous, Mr. Feilding. Would you dare to go 
into a court of justice and swear that these pictures are yours ? 
When did you go to Scilly ? Where did you stay ? Under 
what circumstances did you have me for a model ? On what 
island did you find this view ?” 

He was silent. 

“Will you dare to paint anything — the merest sketch — to 
show that this picture is in your own style ? You cannot.” 

“ Any one,” he said, “ may bring charges — the most reckless 
charges. But I think you would hardly dare — ” 

“ I will do this, then. If you dare to exhibit this picture as 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


313 


your own, I will, most assuredly, take all my friends and stand in 
front of it, and tell them when and where it was painted, and 
by whom, and show them my own portrait.” 

The resolution of this threat quelled him. “ I have no inten- 
tion,” he said, “of exhibiting this picture. It is sold to an 
American, and will go to New York immediately. Next year, 
perhaps, I may take up your challenge.” 

She laughed scornfully. “ I promised Roland,” she said, “ that 
you should not show this picture. That is settled, then. You 
shall not, you dare not.” 

She left the picture reluctantly. It was dreadful to her to 
think that it must go, with his name upon it. 

On a side-table, lay, among a pile of books, the dainty white- 
and-gold volume of poems bearing the name of this great gen- 
ius. She took it up, and laughed. 

“ Oh !” she said. “ Was there ever greater impudence ? Ev- 
ery line in this volume was written by Effie Wilmot — every 
line !” 

“ Indeed ? Who says so ?” 

“ I say so. I have compared the manuscript with the volume. 
There is not the difference of a word.” 

“ If Miss Effie Wilmot, for purposes of her own, and for base 
purposes of deception, has copied out my verses in her own hand- 
writing, probably a wonderful agreement may be found.” 

“ Shame !” cried Armorel. 

“You see the force of that remark. It is a great shame. 
Some girls take to lying naturally. Others acquire proficiency 
in the art. Effie, I suppose, took to it naturally. I am sorry for 
Effie. I used to think better of her.” 

“ Oh ! He tries, even now ! How can you pretend — you — to 
have written this sweet and dainty verse? Oh! You dare to 
put your signature to these poems !” 

“Of course,” said the divine Maker, with brazen front and 
calmly dignified speech, “if these things are said in public or 
outside the studio, I shall be compelled to bring an action for 
libel. I have warned you already. Before repeating what you 
have said here, you had better make quite sure that you can 
prove your words. Ask Miss Effie Wilmot what proofs she has 
of her assertion, if it is hers, and not an invention of your 
own !” 

14 


314 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ Armorel threw down the volume. “ Poor Effie !” she said. 
“ She has been robbed of the first-fruits of her genius. How 
dare you talk of proofs ?” She took up the current number of 
the journal. “ That is not all,” she said. “ Look here ! This 
is one of your stories, is it not ? I read in a paper yesterday that 
no Frenchman ever had so light a touch ; that there are no modern 
stories anywhere so artistic in treatment and in construction as 
your own — your own — your very own, Mr. Feilding. Yet they 
are written for you, every one of them ; they are written by 
Lady Frances Hollington. You are a triple impostor. I believe 
that you really are the very greatest pretender — the most gigan- 
tic pretender in the whole world.” 

“ Of course,” he went on, a little abashed by her impetuos- 
ity. “ I cannot stop your tongue. You may say what you 
please.” 

“ We shall say nothing more. That is what I came to say on 
behalf of my friends. I wished to spare them the pain of fur- 
ther communication with you.” 

“ Kind and thoughtful !” 

“ I have one more question to ask you, Mr. Feilding. Pray, 
why did you tell people that I was engaged to you ?” 

“ Probably,” he replied, unabashed, “ because I wished it to 
be believed.” 

“ Why did you wish it to be believed ?” 

“ Probably for private reasons.” 

“ It was a vile and horrible falsehood !” 

“Come, Miss Rosevean, we will not call each other names. 
Otherwise I might ask you what the world calls a girl who en- 
courages a man to dangle after her for weeks, till everybody talks 
about her, and then throws him over.” 

“ Oh! You cannot mean — ” Before those flashing eyes his 
own dropped. 

“ I mean that this is exactly what you have done,” he said, but 
without looking up. 

“ Is it possible that a man can be so base ? What encourage- 
ment did I ever give you ?” 

“You surely are not going to deny the thing, after all. Why, 
it has been patent for all the world to see you. I have been 
with you everywhere, in all public places. What hint did you 
ever give me that my addresses were disagreeable to you ?” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


315 


“ How can one reply to such insinuations ?” asked Armorel, 
with flaming face. “ And so you followed me about in order to 
be able to say that I encouraged you? What a man — what a 
man ! You have taught me to understand, now, why one man 
may sometimes take a stick and beat another. If I were a man, 
at this moment, I would beat you with a stick. No other treat- 
ment is fit for such a man. I to encourage you ! — when for a 
month and more I have known what an impostor and pretender 
you are ! You dare to say that I have encouraged you ! — you — 
the robber of other men’s name and fame !” 

“Well, if you come to that, I do dare to say as much. 
Come, Miss Armorel Rosevean, I certainly do dare to say as 
much.” 

She turned with a gesture of impatience. 

“ I have said what I came to say. I will go.” 

“ Stop a moment !” said Alec Feilding. “ Is it not rather a 
bold proceeding for a beautiful girl like you, a day or two after 
you have refused a man, to visit him alone at his studio? Is 
it altogether the way to let the world distinctly understand 
that there never has been anything between us, and that it is all 
over !” 

“ I am less afraid of the world than you think. My world is 
my very little circle of friends. I am very much afraid of what 
they think ; but it is on their account, and with their knowl- 
edge, that I am here.” 

“ Alone and unprotected ?” 

“ Alone, it is true. I can always protect myself.” 

“ Indeed !” He turned an ugly, a villainous face towards her. 
“ We shall see ! You come here with your charges and your 
fine phrases. We shall see !” 

He had been standing all this time before his study-table. He 
now stepped quickly to the door. The key was in the lock. He 
turned it, drew it out, and dropped it in his pocket. 

“ Now, my lovely lady,” he said, grinning, “ you have had your 
innings, and I am going to have mine. You have come to this 
studio in order to have a row with me. You have had that row. 
You can use your tongue in a manner that does credit to your 
early education. As for your nonsense about Roland Lee and 
Effie and Lady Frances, no one is going to believe that stuff, you 
know. As for your question, I did tell Lady Frances that you 


316 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


were engaged to me. And I told others. Because, of course, 
you were — or ought to have been. It was only by some kind 
of accident that I did not speak before. As I intended to speak 
the next day, I anticipated the thing by twelve hours or so. 
What of that ? Well, I shall now have to explain that you seem 
not to know your own mind. It will be awkward for you — not 
for me. You have thrown me over. And all you have got to 
say in explanation is a long rigmarole of abuse. This not my 
own painting ? These not my own poems ? These, again, not 
my own stories ? Really, Miss Armorel Rosevcan, you know so 
very little of the world — you are so inexperienced — you are so 
easily imposed upon — that I am inclined to pity rather than to 
blame you. Of course, you have tried to do me harm, and I 
ought to be angry with you. But I cannot. You are much too 
beautiful. To a lovely woman everything, even mischief, is for- 
given !” 

“ Will you open the door and let me go ?” 

“ All in good time. When I please. It will do you no harm 
to be caught alone in my studio — alone with me. It will look so 
like returning to the lover whom, in ti moment of temper, you 
threw over. I will take care that it shall bear that interpre- 
tation, if necessary. You have changed your mind, sweet Armo- 
rcl, have you not? You have repented of that cruel decision?” 

He advanced a little nearer. I really believe that he was still 
confident in his own power of subjugating the sex feminine. 
Heaven knows why some men always retain this confidence. 

Armorel looked round the room. The window was high, too 
high for her to reach ; there was no way of escape except 
through the door. Then she saw something hanging on the 
wall within her reach, and she took courage. 

He drew still nearer ; he held out his hands and laughed. 

“ You are really a lovely girl,” he said. “ I believe there is 
not a more beautiful girl in the whole world. Before you go, 
let us make friends and forgive. It is not too late to change 
your mind. I will forget all you have said and all the mischief 
you have done me. My man is very discreet. He will say noth- 
ing about your visit here, unless I give him permission to speak. 
This I will never allow, unless I am compelled. Come, Armo- 
rel, once more let me be your lover — once more. Give me your 
hands.” 


Now, my lovely lacly,' he said, grinning, 1 you have had your innings , and 1 am going to have mine. 












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ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


317 


lie bowed suppliant. He looked in her face with baleful eyes. 
He tried to take her hands. Armorel sprang from him, and 
darted to the other end of the room. 

The thing she had observed was hanging up among the weap- 
ons and armor and tapestry which decorated this wall of the 
studio. It was an axe from foreign parts, I think — from Indian 
parts — with a stout wooden handle and a boss of steel at the 
upper part. Armorel seized this lethal weapon. It was so 
heavy that no ordinary girl could have lifted it; but her arm, 
strengthened by a thousand days upon the water, tugging at the 
oar, wielded it easily. 

“Open the door!” she cried. “Open the door this mo- 
ment !” 

Her wooer made no reply. He shrank back before the girl who 
handled this heavy axe as lightly as a paper-knife. But he did 
not open the door. 

“ Open it, I say !” 

He only shrank back farther. He was cowed before the wrath 
in her face. He did not know what she would do next. I think 
he even forgot that the key was in his pocket. The door, a 
dainty piece of furniture, was not one of the common machine- 
made things which the competitive German — or is it the thrifty 
Swede ? — is so good as to send over to us. It was a planned and 
fitted door, the panels painted with reeds and grasses — the gift 
of some admirer of genius. Armorel raised the axe, and looked 
at him. He did not move. 

Crash ! It went through the panel. Crash ! again and again. 
The upper part of the door was a gaping wreck of splinters. 
Outside, this discreet man-servant waited in silence and expecta- 
tion. Often ladies had held interviews alone with his master. 
But this was the first time that an interview had ended with such 
a crash. 

“ Will you open the door ?” she asked again. 

The man replied by a curse. 

The lock, a piece of imitation mediaevalism in iron, was fit- 
ted on to the inner part of the door, a very pretty ornament. 
Armorel raised her axe again, and brought the square boss at the 
top of it down upon the dainty, fragile lock, breaking it and tear- 
ing it from the wood. There was no more difficulty in opening 
the door. She did so. She threw the hatchet on the carpet 


318 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


and walked away, the discreet man-servant opening the door for 
her with unchanged countenance, as if the deplorable incident 
had not happened at all. 


CHAPTER XXII. 

THE END OF WORLDLY TROUBLES. 

Not more than five minutes afterwards, Mrs. Elstree arrived 
upon this scene of wreck. The splintered panels, the broken 
lock, the axe lying on the floor, proclaimed aloud that there had 
been an incident of some gravity — certainly what we have called 
a deplorable incident. 

Such a thing as a deplorable incident in such a place and with 
such a man was, indeed, remarkable. Mrs. Elstree gazed upon 
the wreck with astonishment unfeigned. She turned to the ten- 
ant of the studio, who stood exactly where Armorel had left him. 
As the sea when the storm has ceased continues to heave in sul- 
len anger, so that majestic spirit still heaved with wrath as yet 
unappeased. 

In answer to the mute question of her eyes, he growled, and 
threw himself into his study- chair. When she picked up the 
axe and bore it back to its place, he growled. When she pointed 
to the door, he growled again. 

She looked at his angry face, and she laughed gently. The 
last time we saw her she was pale and hysterical. She was now 
smiling, apparently in perfect health of body and ease of mind. 
Perhaps she was a very good actress — off the stage. Perhaps 
she shook off things easily. Otherwise one does not always 
step from a highly nervous and hysterical condition to one of 
happiness and cheerfulness. 

“There appears to have been a little unpleasantness,” she 
said, softly. “ Something, apparently an axe — something hard 
and sharp — has been brought into contact with the door. It 
has been awkward for the door. There has been, I suppose, an 
earthquake.” 

He said nothing, but drummed the table with his fingers — a 
sign of impatient and enforced listening. 


ARMOREL OF tYONESSE. 


319 


“ Earthquakes are dangcious things, sometimes. Meanwhile, 
Alec, if I were you I would have the broken bits taken away.” 
She touched the bell on the table. “ Ford” — this was the name 
of the discreet man-servant — “ will you kindly take the door, 
which you see is broken, off its hinges and send it away to be 
mended. We will manage with the curtain.” 

“ What do you want, Zoe ?” — when this operation had been 
effected — “ what is the important news you have to bring me ? 
And why have you given up your berth ? I suppose you think 
I am able to find you a place just by lifting up my little finger. 
And I hear you have gone without a moment’s notice, just as if 
you had run away ?” 

“ I did run away, Alec,” she replied. “ After what has — been 
done ” — she caught her breath — “ I was obliged to run away. I 
could no longer stay.” 

“ What has been done, then ? Did Armorel tell you ? No — 
she couldn’t.” 

“ She has told me nothing. I have hardly seen her at all dur- 
ing the last few days. Of course, I know that you proposed to 
her — because you went off with that purpose ; and that she re- 
fused you — because that was certain. And, now, don’t begin 
scolding and questioning, because we have got something much 
more important to discuss. I have given up my charge of Ar- 
morel, and I have come here. If you possibly can, Alec, clear 
up your face a little, forget the earthquake, and behave with 
some attempt at politeness. I insist,” she added, sharply, “ upon 
being treated with some pretence at politeness.” 

“ Mind, I am in no mood to listen to a pack of complaints and 
squabbles and jealousies.” 

“ Whatever mind you are in, my dear Alec, it wants the 
sweetening. You shall have no squabbles or jealousies. I will 
not even ask who brought along the earthquake — though, of 
course, it was an angel in the house. They are generally the 
cause of all the earthquakes. Fortunately for you, I am not 
jealous. The important thing about which I want to talk to 
you is money, Alec — money.” 

Something in her manner seemed to hold out promise. A 
drowning man catches at a straw. Alec lifted his gloomy face. 

“ What’s the use ?” he said. “ You have failed to get money 
in the way I suggested. I haven’t got any left at all. And we 


320 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


arc now at the very end. All is over and done, Zoe. The game 
is ended. We must throw up the sponge.” 

“ Not just yet, dear Alec,” she said, softly. 

“ Look here, Zoe ” — he softened a little. “ I have thought 
over things. I shall have to disappear for a while, I believe, till 
things blow over. Now, here’s just a gleam of luck. Jagenal 
the lawyer has been here to-day. He came to tell me that he 
has discovered somehow something belonging to me. He says 
it will run up to nearly a thousand pounds. It isn’t much, but 
it is something. Now, Zoe, I mean to convert that thousand 
into cash — notes — portable property — and I shall keep it in my 
pocket. Don’t think I am going to let the creditors have much 
of that ! If the smash has to come off, I will then give you 
half, and keep the other half myself. Meantime, the possession 
of the money may stave off the smash. But if it comes, we will 
go away — different ways, you know — and own each other no 
more.” 

“ Not exactly, my dear Alec. You may go away, if you 
please, but I shall go with you. For the future, I mean to go 
the same way as you — with you — beside you.” 

“ Oh !” His face did not betray immoderate joy at this pros- 
pect. “ I suppose you have got something else to say. If that 
was all, I should ask how you propose to pay for your railway 
ticket and your hotel bill.” 

“ Of course I have got something else to cay.” 

“It must be something substantial, then. Look here, Zoe, 
this is really no time for fooling. Everything, I tell you, has 
gone, and all at once. I can’t explain. Credit — everything !” 

“ I have read,” said Zoe, taking the most comfortable chair 
and lying well back in it, “ that the wise man once discovered 
that everybody must be either a hammer or an anvil. I think 
it was Voltaire. He resolved on becoming the hammer. You, 
Alec, made the same useful discovery. You, also, became a 
hammer. So far, you have done pretty well, considering. But 
now there is a sudden check, and you are thrown out altogether.” 
“Well?” . 

“ That seems to show that your plans were incomplete. Your 
ideas were sound, but they were not fully developed.” 

“ I don’t know you this morning, Zoe. I have never heard 
you talk like this before.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


321 


“ You have never known me, Alec,” she replied, perhaps a 
little sadly. “ You have never tried to know me. Well — I 
know all. Mr. Roland Lee, the painter, was one anvil — you 
played upon him very harmoniously. Effio Wilmot was an- 
other. Now, Alec, don’t” — she knew the premonitory symp- 
toms — “don’t begin to deny, either with the ‘D’ or without, 
because, I assure you, I know everything. You are like the 
ostrich, who buries his head in the sand and thinks himself in- 
visible. Don’t deny things, because it is quite useless. Before 
we go a step further I am going to make you understand ex- 
actly. I know the whole story. I have suspected things for a 
long time, and now 1 have learned the truth. I learned it bit 
by bit through the fortunate accident of living with Armorel, 
who has been the real discoverer. First I saw the man’s work, 
and I saw at once where you got your pictures from, and what 
was the meaning of certain words that had passed from Armorel. 
Why, Armorel was the model — your model, and you didn’t know 
it. And the coast scenery is her scenery — the Scilly Isles, where 
you have never been. I won’t tell you how I pieced things to- 
gether till I had made a connected story and had no longer any 
doubt. But remember the night of the Reading. Why did Ar- 
morel hold that Reading? Why did she show the unfinished 
picture ? Why did she sing that song ? It was for you, Alec. 
It was to tell you a great deal more than it told the people. It 
was to let you know that everything was discovered. Do you 
deny it now ?” 

“ I suppose that infernal girl — she is capable of everything — ” 

“Even of earthquakes. No, Alec, she has told me nothing. 
They’ve got into the habit of talking — she and Effie and the 
painter man — as if I were asleep. You see I lie about a good 
deal by the fireside, and I don’t want to talk, and so I lie with 
my eyes shut and listen. Then Armorel leaves everything about 
— manuscript poems, sketches, letters — everything, and I read 
them. A companion, of course, must see that her ward is not 
getting into mischief. It is her duty to read private letters. 
When they talk in the evening, Effie, who worships Armorel, 
tells her everything, including your magnificent attempt to be- 
come a dramatic poet, my dear boy — Vrong — wrong — you should 
not get more than one ghost from one family. You should not 
put all your ghosts into one basket. When the painter comes — 
14 * 


322 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


Armorel is in love with him, and he is in love with her; hut 
he has been a naughty boy, and has to show true repentance 
before. ... Oh ! It’s very pretty and sentimental — they play 
the fiddle and talk about Scilly and the old times, and Effie 
sighs with sympathy. It is really very pretty, especially as it 
all helped me to understand their ghostlinesses and to unravel 
the whole story. Fortunately, my dear Alec, you have had to 
do with a girl who is not of the ordinary society stamp, other- 
wise your story would have been given to the society papers 
long ago, and then even I could have done nothing for you. 
Armorel is a girl of quite extinct virtues — forbearing, unre- 
vengeful, honorable, unselfish. You, my dear Alec, could never 
appreciate or understand such a girl.” 

“ The girl is — a girl. What is there to understand in one 
girl more than in another ?” 

“Nothing — nothing. O great poet and greater painter! — 
Nothing. O man of fine insight, and delicate fancy, and subtle 
intellect ! — Nothing. Only a girl.” 

“I know already that they are not going to say anything 
more about it. They are going to let the whole business be 
forgotten. If anything comes out through you — ” 

“Nothing will come out. I told you because it is well that 
we should perfectly understand each other. You will never 
again be able to parade before me in the disguise of genius. 
This is a great pity, because you have always enjoyed playing 
the part. Never again, Alec, because I have found you out. 
Should you ever find me out, I shall not be able to walk with 
you in the disguise of . . . but you must find out first.” 

“ What do you mean ?” 

“ Oh ! you must find out first. When you do find out, you 
will be able to hold out your arms and cry, ‘We are alike at 
last. You have come down to my level — we are now in the 
same depths. Come to my arms, sister in pretence ! Come, 
my bride !’ ” She spread out her arms with an exaggerated 
gesture and laughed, but not mirthfully. 

“ W r hat on earth do you mean, Zoe ? I never saw you like 
this before.” 

“ No, we change sometimes, quite suddenly. It is very unac- 
countable. And now I shall never be anything else than what 
I am now — what you have made me.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


323 


“ What have you done, then ?” 

“Done? Nothing. To do something is polite for commit- 
ting a crime. Could I have done something, do you think? 
Could I actually commit a crime ? O Alec ! — my dear Alec ! — 
a crime ? Well, the really important thing is that your troubles 
are over.” 

“ By Jove ! They are only just beginning.” 

“ It is only money that troubles you. If it were conscience, 
or the sense of honor, I could not help you. As it is only 
money — how much, actually, will put a period to the trouble ?” 

“ If I were to use Jagenal’s promised thousand, I could really 
manage with two thousand more.” 

“ Oh ! Then, my dear Alec, what do you think of this ?” 

She drew out of her pocket a new, clean, white bank-book, and 
handed it to him. 

lie opened it. “ Heavens, Zoe ! What is the meaning of this ?” 

“ You can read, Alec ; it means what it says. Four thousand 
two hundred and twenty-five pounds standing to my credit. Ob- 
serve the name — Mrs. Alexander Feilding — Mrs. Alexander Feed- 
ing — wife, that is, of Alec ! Mrs. Elstree has vanished. She 
has gone to join the limbo of ghosts who never existed. Her 
adored Jerome is there, too.” 

“ What does it mean ?” 

“ It means, again, that I have four thousand two hundred and 
twenty-five pounds of my own, who, the day before yesterday, 
had nothing. Where I got that money from is my own busi- 
ness. Perhaps Armorel relented and has advanced this money — 
perhaps some old friends of my father’s — he had friends, though 
he was reputed so rich and died so miserably — have quietly 
subscribed this amount — perhaps my cousins, whom you forced 
me to abandon, have found me out and endowed me with this 
sum — a late but still acceptable act of generosity— perhaps my 
mother’s sister, who swore she would never forgive me for going 
on the stage, has given way at last ! In short, my dear Alec — ” 

“ Four thousand pounds ! Where could you raise that money ?” 

“ Make any conjecture you please. I shall not tell you. The 
main point is that the money is here — safely deposited in my 
name and to my credit. It is mine, you see, my dear Alec ; 
and it can only be used for your purposes with my consent — 
under my conditions.” 


324 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ How on earth,” he repeated, slowly, “ did yon get four 
thousand pounds ?” 

“ It is difficult for you to find an answer to that question,” 
she replied, “ isn’t it ? Especially as I shall not answer it. 
About my conditions now.” 

“ What conditions ?” 

“ The possession of this capital — I have thought it all out — 
will enable us, first of all, to pay off your creditors in full if 
you must — or at least to satisfy them. Next, it will restore 
your credit. Thirdly, it will enable you to live while I am lay- 
ing the foundations of a new and more stable business.” 

“ You ?” 

“ I, my dear boy. I mean in future to be the active working 
and contriving partner in^he firm. I have the plans and method 
worked out already in my head. You struck out, I must say, 
a line of audacity. There is something novel about it. But 
your plan wanted elasticity. You kept a ghost. Well, I sup- 
pose other people have done this before. You kept three or 
four ghosts, each in his own line. Nobody thought of setting 
up as the Universal Genius before — at least, not to my knowl- 
edge. But, then, you placed your whole dependence upon your 
one single family of ghosts. Once deprived of him — whether 
your painter, your poet, your story-teller — and where were you ? 
Lost ! You are stranded. This has happened to you now. 
Your paper is to come out as usual, and you have got nothing 
to put into it. Your patrons will be flocking to your studio, 
and you have got nothing to show. You have made a grievous 
blunder. Now, Alec, I am going to remedy all this.” 

“ You ?” 

“ You shall see what I am capable of doing. You shall no 
longer waste your time and money in going about to great 
houses. Your wife shall have her salon , which shall be a centre 
of action far more useful and effective. You shall become, 
through her help, a far greater leader, with a far greater name 
than you have ever dreamed of. And your paper shall be a 
bigger thing.” 

“ You, Zoe ? You to talk like this ?” 

“ You thought I was a helpless creature because I never suc- 
ceeded on the stage, and could not even carry out your poor 
little schemes upon Armorel’s purse, I suppose, and because 
I — Well, you shall be undeceived.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


325 


“ If I could only believe tliis !” 

“ You will find, Alec, that my stage experiences will not go 
for nothing. Why, even if I were a poor actress, I did learn the 
whole business of stage management. I am going to transfer 
that business from the stage to the drawing-room, which shall 
be, at first, this room. We shall play our little comedy together, 
you and I.” She sprang to her feet, and began to act as if she 
were on the stage — “It will be a duologue. Your role will still 
be that of the Universal Genius ; mine will be that of the sup- 
posed extinct Lady — the Lady of the Salon — I shall be at home 
one evening a week — say on Sunday. And it shall be an even- 
ing remembered and expected. We shall both take art seri- 
ously ; you as the master, I as the sympathetic and intelligent 
worshipper of art. We shall attract to our rooms artists of 
every kind and those who hang about artistic circles ; our fur- 
niture shall show the latest artistic craze ; foreigners shall come 
here as to the art centre of London — we will cultivate the for- 
eign element ; young people shall come for advice, for encour- 
agement, for introduction ; reputations shall be made and marred 
in this room ; you shall be the leader and chief of the World 
of Art. If there is here and there one who knows that you are 
a humbug, what matters? Alec — ” she struck a most effective 
attitude — “ rise to the prospect ! Have a little imagination ! I 
see before me the most splendid future — oh ! the most splendid 
future !” 

“ All very well. But there’s the present staring us in the 
face. How and where are we to find the — the successors to 
Lady Frances and Effie, and — ” 

“ Where to find ghosts ? Leave that to me. I know where 
there are plenty only too glad to be employed. They can be 
had very cheap, my dear Alec, I can assure you. Oh, I have 
not been so low down in the social levels for nothing. You 
paid a ridiculous price for your ghosts — quite ridiculous. I 
will find you ghosts enough, never fear.” 

“ Where are they ?” 

“ When one goes about the country with a travelling com- 
pany one hears strange things. I have heard of painters — good 
painters — who once promised to become Royal Academicians, 
and anything you please, but took to ways — downward ways, 
you know — and now sit in public-houses and sell their work for 


326 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


fifteen shillings a picture. I will find you such a genius, and 
will make him take pains and produce a picture worthy of his 
better days, and you shall have it for a guinea and a pint of 
champagne.” 

Alec Feilding gasped. The vista before him was too 
splendid. 

“ Or, if you want verses, I know of a poet who used to write 
little dainty pieces — levers de rideau , libretti for little operettas, 
and so forth. He carries the boards about the streets when he 
is very hard up. I can catch that creature and lock him up 
without drink till he has written a poem far better — more man- 
ly — than anything that girl of yours could ever produce, for 
half a crown. And he will never ask what becomes of it. If 
you want stories, I know a man — quite a young fellow — who 
gets about fifteen shillings a week in his travelling company. 
This fellow is wonderful at stories. For ten shillings a column 
he will reel you out as many as you want — good stuff, mind — 
and the papers have never found him out ; and he will never 
ask what has become of them, because he is never sober for 
more than an hour or two at a time in the middle of the day, 
and he will forget his own handiwork. Alec, I declare that I 
can find you as many ghosts as you like, and better — more popu- 
lar — more interesting than your old lot.” 

“ If I could only believe — ” he repeated. 

“ You say that because you have never even begun to believe 
that a woman can do anything. Well, I do not ask you to be- 
lieve. I say that you shall see. I owe to you the idea. All 
the working-out shall be my own. All the assistance you can 
give me will be your own big and important presence and your 
manner of authority. Yes; some men get rich by the labors 
of others ; you, Alec, shall become famous — perhaps immortal — 
by the genius — the collected genius, of others.” 

His imagination was not strong enough to understand the 
vision that she spread out before him. In a wooden way, he 
saw that she intended something big. He only half believed 
it; he only half understood it; but he did understand that 
ghosts were to be had. 

“ There’s next week’s paper, Zoe,” he said, helplessly. “ Noth- 
ing for it yet! We mustn’t have a breakdown — it would be 
fatal !” 


ARMORER OP LYONESSE. 


327 


“ Breakdown ! Of course not, even if I write it all myself. 
You don’t believe that I can write even, I suppose?” 

“ Well, you shall do as you like.” He got up and stood over 
the fire again, sighing his relief. “ At all events, we have got 
this money. Good heavens! What a chance! And what a 
day ! I stood here this morning, Zoe, thinking all was lost. 
Then old Jagenal comes in and tells me of a thousand pounds — 
said it would run to nearly a thousand. And then you come in 
with a bank-book of four thousand ! Oh ! it’s providential ! 
It’s enough to make a man humble. Zoe, I confess — ” he took 
her hands in his, stooped, and kissed her tenderly — “ I don’t 
deserve such treatment from you. I do not, indeed. Are you 
sure about those ghosts? As for me, of course you are right. 
I can’t paint a stroke. I can’t make a rhyme. I can’t write 
stories. I can do nothing — but live upon those who can do 
everything. You are quite sure about those ghosts?” 

“Oh, yes! Quite sure. Of course I knew all along. But 
you must keep it up more religiously than ever, because the 
business is going to be so much — so very much — bigger. Now 
for my conditions.” 

“ Any conditions — any !” 

“You will insert this advertisement for six days, beginning 
to-morrow, in the Times” 

He read it aloud. He read it without the least change of 
countenance, so wooden was his face, so hard his heart. 

“On Wednesday, April 21, 1887, at St. Leonard’s, Worthing, Alexander 
Feilding, of the Grove Studio, Marlborough Road, to Zoe, only daughter of 
the late Peter Evelyn, formerly of Kensington Palace Gardens.” 

“ 1 believe,” he said, folding the paper, “ that was the date. 
It was three years ago, wasn’t it ? I say, Zoe, won’t it be awk- 
ward having to explain things — long interval, you know — en- 
gagement as companion — wrong name ?” 

“ I have thought of that. But it would be more awkward 
pretending that we were married to-day and being found out. 
No. There are not half a dozen people who will ever know that 
I was Armorel’s companion. Then, a circumstance, which there 
is no need ever to explain, forbade the announcement of our 
marriage — hint at a near relation’s will — I was compelled to as- 
sume another name. Cruel necessity !” 


328 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“You arc a mighty clever woman, Zoe.” 

“ I am. If you are wise now, you will assume a joyful air. 
You will go about rejoicing that the bar to this public announce- 
ment has been at length removed. Family reasons — you will 
say — no fault of yours or of mine. It is your business, of 
course, how you will look — but I recommend this line. Be 
the exultant bridegroom, not the downcast husband. Will you 
walk so ?” she assumed a buoyant dancing step with a smiling 
face — “ or so ?” she hung a dejected head and crawled sadly. 

“ By gad, it’s wonderful !” he cried, looking at her with as- 
tonishment. And, indeed, who would recognize the quiet, 
sleepy, indolent woman of yesterday in the quick, restless, and 
alert woman of to-day ? 

“ Henceforth I must work, Alec. I cannot sit down and go 
to sleep any longer. That time has gone. I think I have mur- 
dered sleep.” 

“ Work away, my girl. Nobody wants to prevent you. Arc 
there any other conditions ?” 

“ You will sell your riding-horses, and buy a Victoria. Your 
wife must have something to drive about in. And you will lead, 
in many respects, an altered life. I must have, for the complete 
working-out of my plans, an ideal domestic life. Turtle-doves 
we must be for affection and angels incarnate for propriety. The 
highest art in the home is the highest standard of manners that 
can be set up.” 

“Very good. Any more conditions?” 

“ Only one more condition. J'y suis. J'y reste. You will 
call your servant and inform him that I am your wife, and the 
mistress of this establishment. I think there will be no more 
earthquakes and broken panels. Alec” — she laid her.hand upon 
his arm — “ you should have done this three years ago. I should 
have saved you. I should have saved myself. Now, whatever 
happens, we are on the same level — we cannot reproach each 
other. We shall walk hand in hand. It was done for you, 
Alec. And I would do it again. Yes — yes — yes. Again.” 
She repeated the words with flashing eyes. “ Fraud — sham — 
pretence — these are our servants. We command them. Bv 
them we live, and by them we climb. What matter — so we 
reach the top — by what ladders we have climbed ?” She looked 
around with a gesture of defiance, fine and free. “ The world 


ARMQREL OF LYONESSE. 


329 


is all alike,” she said. “ There is no truth or honor anywhere. 
We are all in the same swim.” 

The man dropped into his vacant chair. “We are saved !” 
he cried. 

“ Saved !” she echoed. “ Saved ! Did you ever see a court 
of justice, Alec ? I have. Once, when our company was play- 
ing at Winchester, I went to see the Assizes. I remember then 
wondering how it would feel to be a prisoner. Henceforth I 
shall understand his sensations. There they stand, two prison- 
ers, side by side — a man and a woman — a pair of them. Found 
out at last, and arrested and brought up for trial. There sits 
the judge, stern and cold ; there are the twelve men of the jury, 
grave and cold ; there are the policemen, stony-hearted ; there 
are the lawyers, laughing and talking ; there are the people be- 
hind, all grave and cold. No pity in any single face — not a 
gleam of pity — for the poor prisoners. Some people go steal- 
ing and cheating because they are driven by poverty. These 
people did not; they were driven by vanity and greed. Look 
at them in the box ; they are well dressed. See ! they are curi- 
ously like you and me, Alec” — she was acting now better than 
she ever acted on the stage. “ The man is like you, and the 
woman — oh ! you poor, unlucky wretch ! — is like me — curiously, 
comically like me. They will be found guilty. What punish- 
ment will they get ? As for her, it was for her husband’s sake 
that she did it. But, I suppose, that will not help her. What 
will they get, Alec ?” 

He sat up in the chair and heaved a great sigh of relief. 

“ What are you talking about, my dear ? I was not listening. 
Well ; we are saved. It has been a mighty close shave. An- 
other day, and I must have thrown up the sponge. We have a 
world of work before us, but if you are only half or quarter as 
clever as you think yourself we shall do splendidly.” He laid 
his arm round her waist and drew her gently and kissed her 
again. “ So — now you are sensible — what were you talking 
about prisoners for ? No more separations now. Let me kiss 
away these tears. And now, Zoe — now — time presses. I am 
anxious to repair my losses. Where are we to find these ghosts ? 
Sit down. To work! To work!” 


330 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE HOUR OF TRIUMPH. 

A man may do a great many things without receiving from 
the world the least sign of regard or interest. He may write 
the most lovely verses — and no one will read them. He may 
design and invent the most beautiful play — which no one will 
act; he may advocate a measure certain to bring about uni- 
versal happiness — but no one will so much as read it. There is 
one thing, however, by which he may awaken a spirit of earnest 
curiosity and interest concerning himself — he may get married. 
Everybody will read the announcement of his marriage in the 
paper ; everybody will immediately begin to talk about him. 
The bridegroom’s present position and future prospects, his 
actual income and the style in which he will live ; the question 
whether he has done well for himself or whether he has thrown 
himself away ; the bride’s family, her age, her beauty, her dot , 
if she has got any ; the question whether she had not a right to 
expect a better marriage — all these points are raised and debated 
when a man is married. Also, which is even more remarkable, 
whatever a man does shall be forgotten by the world, but the 
story of his marriage shall never be forgotten. A man may live 
down calumny ; he may hold up his head though he has been 
the defendant in a disgraceful cause ; he may survive the scan- 
dal of follies and profligacies ; he may ride triumphant over mis- 
fortune ; but he can never live down his own marriage. All 
those who have married “beneath” them — whether beneath 
them in social rank, in manners, in morals, character, in spir- 
itual or in mental elevation, will bear unwilling and grievous 
testimony to this great truth. 

When, therefore, the Times announced the marriage of Mr. 
Alexander Feilding, together with the fact that the announce- 
ment was no less than three years late, great amazement fell 
upon all men and all women — yea, and dismay upon all those 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


331 


girls who knew this universal genius — and upon all who knew 
or remembered the lady, daughter of the financial City person 
who let in everybody to so frightful a tune, and then, like an- 
other treacherous person, went away and hanged himself. And 
as many questions were asked at the breakfast-tables of London 
as there were riddles asked at the famous dinner-party at the 
town of Mansoul. To these riddles there were answers, but to 
those none. For instance, why had Alec Feilding concealed 
his marriage ? Where had he hidden his wife ? And (among 
a very few) how could he permit her to go about the country in 
a provincial troupe? To these replies there have never been 
any answers. The lady herself, who certainly ought to know, 
sometimes among her intimate friends alludes to the cruelty of 
relations, and the power which one’s own people have of mak- 
ing mischief. She also speaks of the hard necessity, owing to 
these cruelties, of concealing her marriage. This throws the 
glamor and magic of romance — the romance of money — over 
the story. But there are some who remain unconvinced. 

The bridegroom wrote one letter, and only one, of explana- 
tion. It was to Mr. Jagenal, the family solicitor. 

“ To so old a friend,” he wrote, “ the fullest explanations are 
due concerning things which may appear strange. Until the 
day before yesterday there were still existing certain family 
reasons which rendered it absolutely necessary for us to conceal 
our marriage and to act with so much prudence that no one 
should so much as suspect the fact. This will explain to you 
why we lent ourselves to the little harmless — perfectly harmless 
— pretence by which my wife appeared in the character of a 
widow. It also explains v/hy she w r as unwilling — while under 
false colors — to go into general society. The unexpected disap- 
pearance of these family reasons caused her to abandon her 
charge hurriedly. I had not learned the fact when you called 
yesterday. Now, I hope that we may receive, though late, the 
congratulations of our friends. — A. F.” 

“ This,” said Mr. Jagenal, “ is an explanation which explains 
nothing. Well, it is all very irregular ; and there is something 
behind ; and it is no concern of mine. Most things in the world 
are irregular. The little windfall of which I told him yesterday 
will be doubly welcome now that he has a wife to spend his 


332 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


money for him. And now we understand why he was always 
dangling after Armorel — because his wife was with her — and 
why he did not fall in love with that most beautiful creat- 
ure.” 

He folded up the note ; put it, with a few words of his own, 
into an envelope, and sent it to Philippa. Then he went on 
with the cases in his hands. Among these were the materials 
for many other studies into the workings of the feminine heart 
and the masculine brain. The solicitor’s tin boxes, the doctor’s 
note-book, the priest’s memory, should furnish full materials for 
that exhaustive psychological research which science will some 
day insist upon conducting. 

In the afternoon of the same day was the private view of the 
Grosvenor Gallery. There was the usual private-view crowd — 
so private now that everybody goes there. It would have been 
incomplete without the presence of Mr. Alec Feilding. 

Now, at the very thickest and most crowded time, when the 
rooms were at their fullest, and when the talk was at its noisiest, 
he appeared, bearing on his arm a young, beautiful, and beauti- 
fully dressed woman. He calmly entered the room where half 
the people were talking of himself and of his marriage, concealed 
for three years, with as much coolness as if he had been about 
in public with his wife all that time. He spoke to his friends 
as if nothing had happened ; and he introduced them to his wife 
as if it were by the merest accident that they had not already 
met. Nothing could exceed the unconsciousness of his manner, 
unless it was the simple and natural ease of his wife. No one 
could possibly guess that there was, or could be, the least awk- 
wardness in the situation. 

The thing itself, and the manner of carrying it through, con- 
stituted a coup of the most brilliant kind. This public appear- 
ance deprived the situation, in fact, of all its awkwardness. No 
one could ask them at the Grosvenor Gallery what it meant. 
There were one or two to whom the bridegroom whispered that 
it was a long and romantic story ; that there had been a bar to 
the completion of his happiness, by a public avowal ; that this 
bar — a purely private and family matter — had only yesterday 
been removed ; nothing was really explained ; but it was gener- 
ally felt that the mystery added another to the eccentricities 
of genius. There was a something, they seemed to remember 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


333 


dimly, about the marriages and love-passages of Shelley, Cole- 
ridge, and Lord Byron. 

Mrs. Feilding, clearly, was a woman born to be an artist’s 
wife — herself artistic in her dress, her manner, and her appear- 
ance ; sympathetic in her caressing voice ; gracious in her man- 
ners ; and openly proud of a husband so richly endowed. 

Alec presented a great many men to her. She had, it seemed, 
already made acquaintance with their works, which she knew by 
name; she betrayed involuntarily, by her gracious smile, and 
the interested, curious gaze of her large and limpid eyes, the 
genuine admiration which she felt for these works, and the very 
great pleasure with which she made the acquaintance of this 
very distinguished author. If any of them were on the walls, 
she bestowed upon them the flattery of measured and apprecia- 
tive praise ; she knew something of the technique. 

“ Alec is not exhibiting this year,” she said. “ I think he is 
right. He had but one picture ; and that was in his old style. 
People will think he can do nothing but sea-coast, rock, and spray. 
So he is going to send his one picture away — if you want to see 
it you must make haste to the studio — and he is going — this is 
a profound secret — to break out in a new line — quite a new line. 
But you must not know anything about it.” 

A paragraph in a column of personal news published the fact, 
the very next day, which shows how difficult it is to keep a 
secret. 

Before Mrs. Feilding left the gallery she had made twenty 
friends for life, and had laid a solid foundation for her Sunday 
Evenings. 

In the evening there was a First Night. No First Nights are 
possible without the appearance of certain people, of whom Mr. 
Alec Feilding was one. He attended, bringing with him his 
wife. Some of the men who had been at the private view were 
also present at the performance, but not many, because the fol- 
lowers of one art do not — as they should — rally round any other. 
But all the dramatic critics were there, and all the regular first- 
nighters, including the wreckers — who go to pit and gallery — 
and the friends of the author and those of the actors. Between 
the acts there was a good deal of circulation and talking. Alec 
presented a good many more gentlemen to his wife. Before 
they went home Mrs. Feilding had made a dozen more friends 


334 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


for life, and placed her Sunday Evenings on a firm and solid basis. 
Her social success — at least among the men — was assured from 
this first day. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE CUP AND THE LIP. 

Two days after the Private View, Alec Feilding repaired, by 
special invitation, to Mr. Jagenal’s office. 

“ I have sent for you, Alec,” said the solicitor, ami de famille , 
“in continuance of our conversation of the other day — about 
that little windfall, you know.” 

“ I am not likely to forget it. Little windfalls of a thousand 
pounds do not come too often.” 

“ They do not. Meantime another very important event has 
happened. I saw the announcement in the paper, and I received 
your note — ” 

“You are the only person — believe me — to whom I have 
thought it right to explain the circumstances — ” 

“Yes? The explanation, at all events, is one that may be 
given in the same words — to all the world. I have no knowl- 
edge of Mrs Feilding’s friends, or of any obstacles that have 
been raised to her marriage ! But I am rather sorry, Alec, that 
you sent her to me under a false name, because these things, if 
they get about, are apt to make mischief.” 

“ I assure you that this plan was only adopted in order the 
more effectually to divert suspicion. It was with the greatest 
reluctance that we consented to enter upon a path of deception. 
I knew, however, in whose hands I was. At any moment I was 
in readiness to confess the truth to you. In the case of a stran- 
ger the thing would have been impossible. You, however, I 
knew, would appreciate the motive of our action, and sympa- 
thize with the necessity.” 

Mr. Jagenal laughed gently — behind the specious words he 
discerned — something — the shapeless spectre which suspicion 
calls up or creates. But he only laughed. “ Well, Alec,” he 
said, “ marriage is a perfectly personal matter. You are a mar- 
ried man. You had reasons of your own for concealing the 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


335 


fact. You arc now enabled to proclaim the fact. That is all 
anybody need know. We condone the little pretence of the 
widowhood. Armorel Rosevean has lost her companion ; wheth- 
er she has also lost her friend I do not know. The rest con- 
cerns yourself alone. Very good. You are a married man. 
All the more reason that this little windfall should be accept- 
able.” 

“ It will be extremely acceptable, I assure you.” 

“ Whether it is money or money’s worth ?” 

“ To save trouble, I should prefer money.” 

“ You must take it as it comes, my dear boy.” 

“ Well, what is it ?” 

“ It is,” replied Mr. Jagenal, solemnly, “ nothing short of the 
sea giving up its treasures, the dead giving up her secrets, and 
the restoration of what was never known to be lost.” 

“ You a maker of conundrums?” 

“ You shall hear. Before we come to the thing itself — the 
treasure, the windfall, the thing picked up on the beach — let me 
again recall to you two or three points in your own family his- 
tory. You mother’s maiden name was Isabel Needham. She 
was the daughter of Henry Needham and Frances his wife. 
Frances was the daughter of Robert Fletcher.” 

“ Very good. I believe that is the case.” 

“ Your money came to you from this Robert Fletcher, your 
maternal great-grandfather. You should, therefore, remember 
him.” 

“I recognize,” said Alec, sententiously, “the respect that 
should be paid to the memory of every man who makes money 
for his children.” 

“Very good. Now, this Robert Fletcher, as a young man, 
went out to India in search of fortune. He was, apparently, an 
adventurous young man, not disposed to sit down at the desk 
after the usual fashion of young men who go out to India. We 
find him in Burmah, for instance — then a country little known 
by Englishmen. While there he managed to attract the notice 
and the favor of the king, who employed him in some capacity 
— traded with him, perhaps ; and, at all events, advanced his in- 
terests — so that, while still a young man, he found himself in 
the possession of a fortune ample enough for his wants — ” 

“ Which he left to his daughters.” 


330 


ARMOKEL OF LYONESSE. 


“ Don’t be in a hurry. That was quite another fortune.” 

“ Oh 1 Another fortune ? What became of the first ?” 

“ Having enough, he resolved to return to his native country. 
But in Burmah there were then no banks, merchants, drafts, or 
checks. He therefore converted his fortune into portable prop- 
erty, which he carried about his person, no one, I take it, know- 
ing anything at all about it. Thus, carrying his treasure with 
him, he sailed for England. Have you heard anything of this ?” 

“ Nothing at all. The beginning of the story, however, is in- 
teresting.” 

“ You will enjoy the end still better. The ship in which lie 
sailed met with disaster. She was wrecked on the Isles of Scilly. 
It is said — but this I do not know — that the only man saved 
from the wreck was your great-grandfather; he was saved by 
one Emanuel Rosevean, great-great-grandfather to Armorel, the 
girl whose charge your own wife undertook.” 

“ Always that girl !” said Alec. 

“ Robert Fletcher was clinging to a spar when he was picked 
up and dragged ashore. He recovered consciousness after a 
long illness, and then found that the leather case in which all 
his fortune lay had slipped from his neck and was lost. There- 
fore he had to begin the world again. lie went away, therefore. 
He went away — ” Mr. Jagenal paused at this point, rattled his 
keys, and looked about him. lie was not a story-teller by profes- 
sion, but he knew instinctively that every story, in order to be 
dramatic — and he wished this to be a very dramatic history — 
should be cut up into paragraphs, illustrated by dialogue, and 
divided into sections. Dialogue being impossible, he stopped 
and rattled his keys. This meant the end of one chapter and 
the beginning of another. 

“Do, pray, get along,” cried his client, now growing inter- 
ested and impatient. 

“ He went away,” the narrator repeated, “ his treasure lost, 
to begin the world again. He came here, became a stockbroker, 
made money — and the rest you know. lie appears never to 
have told his daughters of his loss. 1 have been in communi- 
cation with the solicitors of the late Eleanor Fletcher, your great- 
aunt, and I cannot learn from them that she ever spoke of this 
calamity. Yet had she known of it she must have remembered 
it. To bring all your fortune — a considerable fortune — home 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


337 


in a bag tied round your neck, and to lose it in a shipwreck, is 
a disaster which would, one thinks, be remembered to the third 
and fourth generations.” 

“ I should think so. But you said something about the sea 
giving up its treasure.” 

“ That we come to next. Five years ago, by the death of a 
very aged lady, her great-great-grandmother, Armorel Rosevean 
succeeded to an inheritance which turned out to be nothing less 
than the accumulated savings of many generations. Among 
other possessions, she found in this old lady’s room a sea-chest 
containing things apparently recovered from wrecks or drowned 
men or washed ashore by the sea — a very curious and interest- 
ing collection : there were snuff-boxes, watches, chains, rings, all 
kinds of things. Among these treasures she turned out, at the 
bottom of the chest, a case of shagreen with a leather thong. 
On opening this, Armorel found it to contain a quantity of pre- 
cious stones and a scrap of paper which seemed to show that 
they had formerly been the property of one Robert Fletcher. 
AVe may suppose, if we please, that the case containing the jew- 
els was cast up on the beach after the storm, and tossed into the 
chest without much knowledge of its contents or their value. 
AVe may suppose that Emanuel Rosevean bought them. AVe 
may suppose what we please, because we can prove nothing. 
For my own part, I think there is no reasonable doubt that the 
case actually contained the fortune of Robert Fletcher. The dates 
of the story seem to correspond ; the handwriting appears to be 
his ; we have letters of his speaking of his intention to return, 
and of his property being in convenient portable shape.” 

“ AVell — then — this portable fortune belongs to Robert Fletch- 
er’s heirs.” 

« Not. so quick. How are you going to prove your claim ? 
You have nothing to go by but a fragment of writing with part 
of his name on it. You cannot prove that he was shipwrecked; 
and if you could do that, you could not prove that these jewels 
belonged to him.” 

“ If .there is any doubt, she ought to give them up. She is 
bound, in honor.” 

“ I said that, in my mind, there is no reasonable doubt. That 
is, because I have heard a great deal more than could be admit- 
ted in evidence. But now — listen again, without interrupting. 

15 


338 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


When, five years ago, the young lady placed the management of 
her affairs in my hands, through the vicar of her parish, I had 
every part of her very miscellaneous fortune valued, and a part 
of it sold. I had these rubies examined by a merchant in jew- 
els.” 

“ And how much were they worth ?” 

“ One with another — some being large, and very valuable in- 
deed, and others small — they were said, by my expert, to be 
worth thirty-five thousand pounds. They might, under favora- 
ble circumstances, and if judiciously placed in the market, real- 
ize much more. Thirty-five thousand pounds !” 

“What?” He literally opened his mouth. “How much do 
you say?” 

“ Thirty-five thousand pounds.” 

. “ Oh ! But the stones are not hers — they belong — they be- 
long — to us — to the descendants of Robert Fletcher.” No one 
would have called that face wooden now. It was full of excite- 
ment — the excitement of a newly awakened hope. “ Does she 
propose to buy me off with a thousand pounds ? Does she think 
I am to be bought off at any price ? The jewels are mine — 
mine — that is, I have a share in them.” 

“ Gently — gently — gently ! What proof have you got of this 
story? Nothing. You never heard of it; your great-grand- 
father never spoke of it. Nothing would have been heard of it 
at all but for this old lady from whom Armorel inherited. The 
property is hers as much as anything else. If she gives up any- 
thing, it is by her own free and uncompelled will. She need 
give nothing. Remember that.” 

“Then she offers me a miserable thousand pounds for my 
share — which ought to be at least a third. Jagenal ” — he turned 
purple, and the veins stood out on his forehead — “ that infernal 
girl hates me ! She has done me — I cannot tell you how much 
mischief. She persecutes me. Now she offers to buy me out 
of my share of thirty-five thousand pounds — a third share — nay 
— a half, because my great-aunt left no children — for a thousand 
pounds down !” 

“ I did not say so.” 

“ You told me that the windfall would amount to a thousand 
pounds.” 

“That was in joke, my boy. You are perfectly wrong about 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


339 


Armorel hating you. How can she hate you ? You are so far 
wrong in this instance that she has instructed me to give you 
the whole of this fortune — actually to make you a free gift of 
the whole property— the whole, mind — thirty-five thousand 
pounds 1” 

“To me? Armorel gives me — me — the whole of this fort- 
une ?” Blank astonishment fell upon him. He stood staring 
— open-mouthed. “ To ME ?” he repeated. 

“ To you. She does not, to be sure, know to whom she gives 
it. She is only desirous of restoring the jewels which she in- 
sists in believing to belong to Robert Fletcher’s family. There- 
fore, as it would be obviously impossible to find out and to di- 
vide this fortune among all the descendants of Robert Fletcher, 
who are scattered about the globe, she was resolved to give them 
to the eldest descendant of the second daughter.” 

“ Oh !” Alec turned pale, and dropped into a chair, broken 
up. “ To the eldest descendant of the second — the second 
daughter. Then — ” 

“Then to you, as the only grandson of the second daughter 
— Frances.” 

“The second daughter was — ” He checked himself. He 
sighed. He sat up. His eyes, always small and too close to- 
gether, grew smaller and closer together. “ The other branch 
of the family,” he said slowly, “ has vanished — as you say — it 
is scattered over the face of the globe. I do not know anything 
about my cousins — if I have any cousins. Perhaps when you 
have carried on the search a little further — ” 

“ But I am not going to carry it on any further at all. Why 
should I? We have nothing more to learn. I am instructed by 
Armorel to give the rubies to you. It is a gift — not a right. 
It is not an inheritance, remember — it is a free gift. She says, 
‘ These rubies used to belong to Robert Fletcher. I will restore 
them to some one of his kin.’ You are that some one. Why 
should I inquire further ?” 

“ Oh 1” Alec sank back in his chair and closed his eyes as 
one who recovers fr<*m a sharp pang, and sighed deeply. “ If 
you are satisfied, then — But if other cousins should turn 
up — ” 

“ They will have nothing, because nobody is entitled to any- 
thing. Come, Alec, my boy, you look a little overcome. It is 


340 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


natural. Pull yourself together, and look at the facts. You 
will have thirty-five thousand pounds — perhaps a little more. 
At four per cent. — I think I can put you in the way of getting 
so much with safety — you will have fourteen hundred a year. 
You will have that, apart from your literary and artistic income. 
It is not a gigantic fortune, it is true ; but let me tell you that 
it is a very handsome addition indeed to any man’s income. 
You will not be able to live in Kensington Palace Gardens, where 
your wife lived as a girl ; but you can take a good house and 
see your friends, and have any thing in reason. Well, that is 
all I have to say, except to congratulate you, which I do, my 
Alec ” — he seized the fortunate young man’s hand and shook it 
warmly — “most heartily. I do, indeed. You deserve your 
good luck — every bit of the good luck that has befallen you. 
Everybody who knows you will rejoice. And it comes just at 
the right moment — just when you have acknowledged your 
marriage and taken your wife home.” 

“ Really,” said Alec, now completely recovered, “ I am over- 
whelmed with this stroke of luck. It is the most unexpected 
thing in the world. I could never have dreamed of such a thing. 
To find out, on the same day, that one’s great-grandfather once 
made a fortune and lost it, and that it has been recovered, and 
that it is all given to me — it naturally takes one’s breath away at 
first.” 

“You would like to gaze upon this fortune from the Ruby 
Mines of Burmah, would you not ?” Mr. Jagenal threw open the 
door of a safe, and took out a parcel in brown paper. “ It is 
here.” He opened the parcel, and disclosed the shagreen case 
which we have already seen in the sea-chest. He laid it on the 
table, and unrolled the silk in which the stones were rolled. 
“ There they are — look common enough, don’t they ? One seems 
to have picked up stones tw T ice as pretty on the sea-shore : here 
are two or three cut and polished — bits of red glass would look 
as pretty.” 

“ Thirty-five thousand pounds !” Alec cried, laying a hand, 
as if in episcopal benediction, upon the treasure. “ Is it possible 
that this little bundle of stones should be worth so much ?” 

“ Quite possible. Now — they are yours — what will you do 
with them ?” 

“ First, I will ask you to put them back in the safe.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


341 


“ I will send them to your hank if you please.” 

“ No — keep them here — I will consult you immediately about 
their disposition. Thirty-five thousand pounds ! Thirty-five — 
perhaps we may get more for them. What am I to say to this 
girl ? Perhaps when she learns who has got the rubies she will 
refuse to let them go. I am sure she would never consent.” 

“Nonsense — about persecution and annoyance! Armorel 
hate you ? Why should she hate you ? The sweetest girl in the 
world. You men of genius are too ready to take offence. The 
things are yours. I have given them to you by her instructions. 
I have written you a letter, formally conveying the jewels to you. 
Here it is. And now go home, my dear fellow, and when you 
feel like taking a holiday, do it with a tranquil mind, remember- 
ing that you’ve got fourteen hundred pounds a year given you 
for nothing at all by this young lady, who wasn’t obliged to give 
you a penny. Why, in surrendering these jewels, she has sur- 
rendered a good half of her whole fortune. Find me another 
girl, anywhere, who would give up half her fortune for a scruple. 
And now go away, and tell your wife. Let her rejoice. Tell 
her it is Armorel’s wedding-present.” 

Alec Feilding walked home. He was worth thirty -five thousand 
pounds — fourteen hundred pounds a year. When one comes 
to think of it, though we call ourselves such a very wealthy 
country, there are comparatively few, indeed, among us who can 
boast that they enjoy an income of fourteen hundred pounds a 
year, with no duties, responsibilities, or cares about their income 
— and with nothing to do for it. Fourteen hundred pounds a 
year is not great wealth ; but it will enable a man to keep up a 
very respectable style of living ; many people in society have 
got to live on a great deal less. He and his wife were going to 
live on nothing a year, except what they could get by their wits. 
Fourteen hundred a year ! They could still exercise their wits : 
that is to say, he should expect his wife, now the thinking part- 
ner, to exercise her wits with zeal. But what a happiness for a 
man to feel that he does not live by his wits alone ! Alas ! It 
is a joy that is given to few indeed of us. 

As for his late literary and artistic successes, how poor and 
paltry did they appear to this man, who had no touch of the 
artist nature, beside this solid lump of money, worth all the 
artistic or poetic fame that ever was achieved ! 


342 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


He went home dancing, ne was at peace with all mankind, 
lie found it in his heart to forgive everybody : Roland Lee, 
who had so basely deserted him ; Effie, that snake in the grass ; 
Lady Frances, the most treacherous of women ; Armorel her- 
self — Oh, heavens ! what could not be forgiven to the girl 
who had made him such a gift? Even the revolt against his 
authority ; even the broken panel, the shattered lock, and the 
earthquake. 

In this mood he arrived at home. His wife, the thinking 
partner, was hard at work in the interests of the new firm. In 
her hand was a manuscript volume of verse ; on the table beside 
her lay an open portfolio of sketches and drawings. 

“You see, Alec,” she looked up, smiling. “ Already the ghosts 
have begun to appear at my call. If you ask me where I found 
them, I reply, as before, that when one travels about with a 
country company one has opportunities. All kinds of queer 
people may be heard of. Your ghosts, in future, my dear boy, 
must be of the tribe which has broken down and given in, not 
of tho-se who are still young and hopeful. I have found a man 
who can draw — here is a portfolio full of his things, in black 
and white ; they can be reproduced by some photographic proc- 
ess ; he is in an advanced stage of misery, and will never know 
or ask what becomes of his things. He ought to have made 
his fortune long ago. He hasn’t, because he is always drunk 
and disreputable. It will do you good to illustrate the paper 
with your own drawings. There’s a painter I have heard of. 
lie drinks every afternoon and all the evening at a certain 
place, where you must go and find him. He has long since been 
turned out of every civilized kind of society, and you can get his 
pictures for anything you like ; he can’t draw much, I believe, 
but his coloring is wonderful. There is an elderly lady, too, 
of whom I have heard. She can draw, too, and she’s got no 
friends and can be got cheap. And this book is full of the 
verses of a poor wretch who was once a rising literary man, 
and now carries a banner at Drury-Lane Theatre whenever they 
want a super. As for your stories, I have got a broken-down 
actor — he writes better than he can act — to write stories of the 
boards. They will appear anonymously, and if people attribute 
them to you he will not be able to complain. Oh, I know what 
I am about, Alec ! Your paper shall double its circulation in a 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


343 


month, and shall multiply its circulation by ten in six months, 
and without the least fear of such complications as have hap- 
pened lately. They must be avoided for the future — proposals 
as well as earthquakes — my dear Alec.” 

Alec sat down on the table and laughed carelessly. “Zoe,” 
he said, “ you are the cleverest woman in the world. It was a 
lucky day for us both when you came here. I made a big mis- 
take for three years. Now I’ve got some news for you — good 
news.” 

“ That can only mean — money.” 

“ It does mean — money, as you say. Money, my dear. Money 
that makes the mare to go.” 

“ How much, Alec ?” 

“ More than your four thousand. Twenty times as much as 
that little balance in your book.” 

“ Oh, Alec ! is it possible ? Twenty times as much ? Eighty 
thousand pounds ?” 

“ About that sum,” he replied, exaggerating with the instincts 
of the City, inherited, no doubt, from Robert Fletcher. “ Per- 
haps quite that sum if I manage certain sales cleverly.” 

“ Is it a legacy ? — or an inheritance ? — how did you get it ?” 

“ It is not exactly a legacy ; it is a kind of restoration to an 
unknown person ; a gift not made to me personally, but to me 
unknown.” 

“ You talk to me in riddles, Alec.” 

“ I would talk in blank verse if I could. It is, indeed, liter- 
ally true. I have received an — estate — in portable property 
worth nearly forty thousand pounds.” 

“ Oh ! Then we shall be really rich, and not have to pretend 
quite so much ? A little pretence, Alec, I like. It makes me 
feel like returning to society ; too much pretence reminds one 
of the policeman.” 

“ Don’t you want to know how I have come into this money ?” 

“ I am not curious, Alec. I like everything to be done for 
me. When I was a girl there were carriages and horses and 
everything that I wanted — all ready — all done for me, you 
know. Then I was stripped of all. I had nothing to do or to 
say in the matter. It was done for me. Now, you tell me you 
have got eighty thousand pounds. Oh, heavens ! It is done 
for me. The ways of fate are so wonderful. Things are given 


344 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


and tilings are taken away. Why should I inquire how things 
come ? Perhaps this will be taken away in its turn.” 

“ Not quite, Zoe. I have got my hand over it. You can 
trust your husband, I think, to keep what he has got.” Indeed, 
he looked at this moment cunning enough to be trusted with 
keeping the national debt itself. 

u Eighty thousand pounds !” she said. “ Let me write it 
down. Eighty thousand pounds ! Eight and one, two, three, four 
noughts.” She wrote them down, and clasped her hands, saying, 
“ Oh ! the beauty — the incomparable beauty — of the last nought !” 

“ Perhaps not quite so much,” said her husband, thinking 
that the exaggeration was a little too much. 

“ Don’t take off one of my noughts — not my fourth, not my 
Napoleon of noughts !” 

“ No — no. Keep your four noughts. Well, my dear, if it is 
only sixty thousand or so there is two thousand a year for us. 
Two thousand a year !” 

“ Don’t, Alec ; don’t ! Not all at once. Break it gently.” 

u We will carry on the paper ; and perhaps do something or 
other — carefully, you know — in art. There is no need to knock 
things off. And if you can make the paper succeed, as you 
think, there will be so much the more. Well, we can use it all. 
For my part, Zoe, my dear, I don’t care how big the income is. 
I am equal to ten thousand.” 

“ Of course, and you will still pronounce judgments and be a 
leader. Now let us talk of what we will do — where we will 
live — and all. Two thousand is pretty big to begin with, after 
three years’ tight fit ; but the paper will bring in another two 
thousand easily. I’ve been looking through the accounts — bills 
and returns — and I am sure it has been villainously managed. 
We will run it up ; we will have ten thousand a year to spend. 
A vast deal may be done with ten thousand a year : w T e will have 
a big weekly dinner as well as an At Home. We will draw all 
the best people in London to the house ; we will — ” 

She enlarged with great freedom on what could be done with 
this income ; she displayed all the powers of a rich imagination : 
not even the milkmaid of the fable more largely anticipated the 
joys of the future. 

“ And, oh, Alec !” she cried. “ To be rich again ! rich only 
to the limited extent of ten thousand a year, is too great happi- 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


345 


ness. When my father was ruined, I thought the world was end- 
ed. Well, it was ended for me, because you made me leave it 
and disappear. The last four years I should like to be clean 
forgotten and driven out of my mind — horrid years of failing 
and enduring and waiting ! And now we arc rich again ! Oh ! 
we are rich again ! It is too much happiness !” 

The tears rose to her eyes ; her soft and murmuring voice broke. 

“ My poor Zoe,” her husband laid his hand on hers, “ I am 
rejoiced,” he said, “ as much for your sake as for my own.” 

“ How did you get this wonderful fortune, Alec ?” 

“ Through Mr. Jagenal, the lawyer. It’s a long story. A 
great-grandfather of mine was wrecked and lost his property. 
That was eighty years ago. Now, his property was found. 
Who do you think found it ? Armorel Rosevean. And she has 
restored it — to me.” 

“ What !” She sprang to her feet, her face suddenly turning 
white. “ What ! Armorel ?” 

“ Yes, certainly. Curious coincidence, isn’t it ? The very girl 
who has done me so much mischief. The man was wrecked on 
the island where her people lived.” 

“Yes — yes — yes. The property — what was it? What was 
it? Quick!” 

“ It was a leather case filled with rubies — rubies worth at least 
thirty -five thousand pounds — What’s the matter ?” 

“ Rubies ! Her rubies ! Oh ! Armorel’s rubies ! No — no — 
no — not that ! Anything — anything but that ! Armorel’s rubies 
— Armorel’s rubies !” 

“ What is the matter, Zoe ? What is it ?” 

She gasped. Her eyes were wild ; her cheek was white. She 
was like one who is seized with some sudden horrible and unin- 
telligible pain. Or she was like one who has suddenly heard the 
most dreadful and most terrible news possible. 

“ What is it, Zoe ?” her husband asked again. 

“You? Oh ! you have brought me this news — you! I thought, 
perhaps, some one — Armorel — or some other might find me out. 
But you ! — you !” 

“ Again, Zoe ” — he tried to be calm, but a dreadful doubt seized 
him — “ what does this mean ?” 

“ I remember,” she laughed wildly, “ what I said when I gave 
you the bank-book. If you found me out, I said, we should be 
15 * 


346 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


both on the same level. You would be able to hold out your 
arms, I said, and to cry, ‘You have come down to my level. 
Come to my heart, sister in wickedness.’ That is what I said. Oh ! 
I little thought — it was a prophecy — my words have come true.” 

She caught her head with her hand — it is a stagy gesture — 
she had learned it on the stage ; yet at this moment of trouble 
it was simple and natural. 

“ What the Devil do you mean ?” he cried with exasperation. 

“ They were your rubies all the time, and I did not know. 
Your rubies ! If I had only known ! Oh ! what have I done? 
What have I done ?” 

“ Tell me quick what you have done.” He caught her by 
the arm roughly. He actually shook her. His own face now 
was almost as white as hers. “ Quick — tell me — tell me — tell 
me 1” 

“You wanted money badly. You told me so every time I 
saw you. It was to get money that I went to live with Armorel. 
I could not get it that way. But I found another way. She 
told me about the rubies. I knew where they were kept. In 
the bank. In a sealed packet. I had seen an inventory of the 
things in the bank. Armorel told me the story of the rubies, 
and I never believed it — I never thought there would be any 
search for the man’s heirs. I never thought the story was true. 
She told me, besides, all about her other things — her miniatures 
and snuff-boxes, and watches and rings. She showed me all her 
beautiful lace, worth thousands. And as for the gold things and 
the jewels, they were all in the bank, in separate sealed parcels, 
numbered. She showed me the bank receipts. Opposite each 
number was written the contents of each, and opposite Number 
Three was written, ‘ The case containing the rubies.’ ” 

“Well? Well?” 

“ Hush ! What did I do ? Let me think. I am going mad, 
I believe. It was for your sake — all for your sake, Alec ! All 
for your sake that I have ruined you !” 

“ Ruined me ? Quick ! What have you done ?” 

“ It was for your sake, Alec — all for your sake ! Oh, for your 
own sake I have lost and ruined you !” 

“You will drive me mad, I think l” he gasped. 

“ I wrote a letter, one day, to the manager of the bank. I 
wrote it in imitation of Armorel’s hand. I signed her name at 


ARMOREL OF LYON'ESSE. 


347 


the end so that no one could have told it was a forgery. My 
letter told him to give the sealed packet numbered three to the 
hearer, who was waiting. I sent the letter by a commissionaire. 
He returned bringing the packet with him.” 

“ And then ?” 

“ Oh ! Then — then — Alec, you will kill me — you will surely 
kill me when you know ! You care for nothing in the world 
but for money — and I — I have stolen away your money ! It is 
gone — it is gone !” 

“You stole those rubies? But I have seen them. They are 
in Jagenal’s safe. What do you mean ?” he cried hoarsely. 

“I have sold them. I stole them, and I sold them all — they 
were worth — how much did you say ? Fifty — sixty — eighty 
thousand pounds ? I sold them all, Alec, for four thousand two 
hundred and twenty-five pounds ! I sold them to a Dutchman 
in Hatton Garden.” 

“You are raving mad ! You dream ! I have seen them. I 
have handled them.” 

“ What you have seen were the worthless imitation jewels 
that I substituted. I found out where to get sham rubies made 
of paste, or something — some cut and some uncut. I bought 
them, and I substituted them in the case. Then I returned the 
packet to the bank. I had the packet in my possession no more 
than one morning. The man who bought the stones swore they 
were worth no more. He said he should lose money by them ; 
he was going away to America immediately, and wanted to set- 
tle at once, otherwise he would not give so much. That is what 
I have done, Alec.” 

“ Oh !” he stood over her, his eyes glaring ; he roared like a 
wild beast ; he raised his hand as if to slay her with a single 
blow. But he could find no words. His hand remained raised 
— he was speechless — he was motionless — he was helpless with 
blind rage and madness. 

His wife looked up, and waited. Now that she had told her 
tale she was calm. 

“ If you are going to kill me,” she said, “ you had better do 
it at once. I think I do not care about living any longer. Kill 
me, if you like.” 

He dropped his arm ; he straightened himself, and stood 
upright. 


348 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ You are a thief !” he said, hoarsely. “You are a wretched, 
miserable Thief !” 

She pointed to the picture on the easel. 

“ And you — my husband ?” 

He threw himself into a chair. Then he got up and paced 
the room ; he beat the air with his hands ; his face was dis- 
torted ; his eyes were wild ; he abandoned himself to one of 
Uiose magnificent rages of which we read in history. William 
the Conqueror — King Richard — King John — many mediaeval 
kings used to fall into these rages. They are less common of 
late. But then such provocation as this is rare in any age. 

When, at last, speech came to him, it was at first stuttering 
and broken ; speech of the elementary kind ; speech of primi- 
tive man in a rage ; speech ejaculatory ; speech interjectional ; 
speech of railing and cursing. He walked — or, rather, tramped 
— about the room ; he stamped with his foot ; he banged the 
table with his fist ; he roared ; he threatened ; he cleared the 
dictionary of its words of scorn, contempt, and loathing ; he 
hurled all these words at his wife. As a tigress bereft of her 
young, so is such a man bereft of his money. 

His wife, meantime, sat watching, silent. She waited for the 
storm to pass. As for what he said, it was no more than the 
rolling of thunder. She made no answer to his reproaches; 
but for her white face you would have thought she neither heard 
nor felt nor cared. 

Outside, Ford, the discreet man-servant, heard every word. 
Once, when his master threatened violence, he thought it might 
be his duty to interfere. As the storm continued, lie began to 
feel that this was no place for a man-servant who respected him- 
self. He remembered the earthquake. He had then been 
called upon to remove from its hinges a door fractured in a 
row. That was a blow. He was now compelled to listen while 
a master, unworthy of such a servant, brutally swore at his wife, 
lie perceived that his personal character and his dignity no lon- 
ger allowed him to remain with such a person. He resigned, 
therefore, that very day. 

When the bereaved sufferer could say no more — 'for there 
comes a time when even to shriek fails to bring relief — he threw 
himself into a chair and began to cry. Yes ; he cried like a 
child ; he wept and sobbed and lamented. The tears ran down 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


349 


his cheeks; liis voice was choked with sobs. The discreet man- 
servant outside blushed with shame that such a thing should 
happen under his roof. The wife looked on without a sign or 
a word. We break down and cry when we have lost the thing 
which most we love — it may be a wife ; it may be a child ; in 
the case of this young man the thing which most he loved and 
desired w T as money. It had been granted to him — in large and 
generous measure. And, lo ! it was torn from his hands before his 
fingers had even closed around it. Oh ! the pity — the pity of it ! 

This fit, too, passed away. 

Half an hour later, when he was quite quiet, exhausted with 
his rage, his wife laid her hand upon his shoulder. 

“ Alec,” she said, “ I have always longed for one thing most 
of all. It was the only thing, I once thought, that made it 
worth the trouble to live. An hour ago it seemed that the thing 
had been granted to me. And I was happy even with this 
guilt upon my soul. I know you for what you are. Yet I 
desired your love. Henceforth, this dreadful thing stands be- 
tween us. You can no longer love me — that is certain, because 
I have ruined you — any more than I can hold you in respect. 
Yet we will continue to walk together — hand in hand — I will 
work and you shall enjoy. If we do not love each other, we 
can continue in partnership, and show to the world faces full 
of affection. At least you cannot reproach me. I am a thief, 
it is true — most true ! And you — Alec ! you — oh ! my husband ! 
what are you ?” 


CHAPTER XXY. 

TO FORGET IT ALL. 

When Philippa read the announcement in the Times , she 
held her breath for a space. It was at breakfast. Her father 
was reading the news ; she was looking through that column 
which interests us all more than any other. Her eye fell upon 
her cousin’s name. She read, she changed color, she read again. 
Her self-control returned. She laid down the paper. “ Here,” 
she said, “ is a very astonishing announcement !” A very as- 
tonishing announcement indeed ! 


350 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


An hour later she called upon Armorel at her rooms. 

“ You are left quite alone in consequence of this — this amazing 
revelation ?” 

“ Quite. Not that I mind being alone. And Effie Wilmot 
is coming.” 

“ Nothing in the world,” said Philippa, “ could have aston- 
ished me more. It is not so much the fact of the marriage — 
indeed, my cousin’s name was mentioned at one time a good 
deal in connection with hers — hut the dreadful duplicity. He 
sent her to you — she came to us — as a widow. And for three 
years they have been married ! Is it possible ?” 

“ Indeed,” said Armorel, “ I know nothing. She left me 
without a cause, and now I hear of her marriage. That is all.” 

“ My dear, the thing reflects upon us. It is my cousin who 
has brought this trouble upon you.” 

“ Oh, no, Philippa ! As if you could he held responsible for 
his actions ! And, indeed, you must not speak of trouble. I 
have had none. My companion was never my friend in any 
sense ; we had nothing in common ; we must have parted com- 
pany very soon ; she irritated me in many ways, especially in 
her blind praise of the man who now turns out to be her hus- 
band. I really feel much happier now that she has gone.” 

“ But you have no companion — no chaperon.” 

“ I don’t want any chaperon, I assure you.” 

“ But you cannot go into society alone.” 

“ I never do go into society. You know that nobody ever 
called upon Mrs. Elstree — or Mrs. Feilding, as we must now 
call her. There are only two houses in the whole of this great 
London into which I have found an entrance — yours and Mr. 
Jagenal’s.” 

“Yes; I know now. And most disgraceful it is that you 
should have been so sacrificed. That also is my cousin’s doing. 
He represented his wife — it seems difficult to believe that he 
has got a wife — as a person belonging to a wide and very de- 
sirable circle of friends. Not a soul called upon her ! The 
world cannot continue to know a woman who has disappeared 
bodily for three long years, during which she was reported to 
have been seen on the stage of a country theatre. What has 
she been doing ? Why has she been in hiding ? It was cul- 
pable negligence in Mr. Jagenal not to make inquiries. What 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


351 


it must be called in my cousin others may determine. As for 
you, Armorel, you have been most disgracefully and shame- 
fully treated.” 

“ I suppose I ought to have had a companion who w r as recog- 
nized by society. But it seems to matter very little. I have 
made one or two new friends, and I have found an old friend.” 

“ It is not too late, of course, even for this season. Now, 
my dear Armorel, I am charged with a mission. It is to bring 
you back with me — to get you to stay with us for the season, 
and, at least, until the summer holidays. That is, if you would 
be satisfied with our friends.” 

“ Thank you, Philippa, a thousand times. I do not think I 
can accept your kindness, however, because I feel as if I must 
go away somewhere. I have had a great deal of anxiety and 
worry. It has been wretched -to feel — as I have been made to 
feel — that I was in the midst of intrigues and designs, the nat- 
ure of which I hardly understood. I must go away out of the 
atmosphere. I will return to London when I have forgotten 
this time. I cannot tell you all that has been going on, except 
that I have discovered one deception after another — ” 

“ She is an abominable woman,” said Philippa. 

“ On the island of Samson, at least, there will be no wives 
who call themselves widows, and no men who call themselves — ” 
painters and poets, she was going to say, but she checked her- 
self — “call themselves,” she substituted, “single men, when 
they are already married.” 

“ But, surely, you will not go away now — just at the very 
beginning of the season ?” 

“ The season is nothing at all to me.” 

“ Oh ! But, Armorel — think. You ought to belong to so- 
ciety. You are wealthy ; you are a most beautiful girl ; you 
are quite young ; and you have so many gifts and accomplish- 
ments. My dear cousin, you might do so well, so very well. 
There is no position to which you could not aspire.” 

Armorel laughed. “ Not in that way,” she said. “ I have 
already told you, dear Philippa, that I am not able to think of 
things in that way.” 

“Always that dream of girlhood, dear? Well, then, come 
and show yourself, if only to make the men go mad with love 
and the women with envy. Stay with us. Or, if you prefer 


352 


ARMOItEL OF LYONESSE. 


it, I will find you a companion who really does belong to the 
world.” 

“ No, no ; for the present I have had enough of companions. 
I want nothing more than to go home and rest. 1 feel just a 
little battered. My first experience of London has not been, 
you see, quite what I expected. Let me go away, and come 
hack when I feel more charitable towards my fellow-creatures.” 

“ You have had a most horrid experience,” said Philippa. 
“ I trembled for you when I learned who your companion was. 
I was at school with her, and — w r ell, I do not love her. But 
what could I do ? Mr. Jagenal said she had been most strongly 
recommended — I could not interfere ; it was too late ; and be- 
sides, after what had happened, years before, it would have 
looked vindictive. And then she has been rich and is now 
poor, and perhaps, I thought, she wanted money ; and when 
one has quarrelled it is best to say nothing against your enemy. 
Besides, I knew nothing definite against her. She said she was 
a widow — my cousin Alec said that he had been an old friend 
of her husband ; he spoke of having helped him. Oh, he made 
up quite a long and touching story about his dead friend. So, 
you see, I refrained, and if I could say nothing good, I would 
say nothing bad.” 

“ I am sure that no one can possibly blame you in the mat- 
ter, Philippa.” 

“Yet I blame myself. For if I had caused a few questions 
to be asked at first, all the lies about the widowhood might 
have been avoided.” 

“ Others would have been invented.” 

“Perhaps. Well — she is married, and I don’t suppose her 
stay here will have done you any real harm. As for her, to go 
masquerading as a widow and to tell a thousand lies daily can 
hardly do any woman much good. Have you made up your 
mind how you will treat her if you should meet ?” 

“ She lias settled that question. She wrote me a letter say- 
ing that she has behaved so badly that she wishes never to see 
me again. And if we should meet she begs that it will be as 
perfect strangers.” 

“ Really — after all that has been done — that is the very 
least — ” 

“ So we are to meet as strangers. I suppose that will be 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


353 


best. It would be impossible to ask for explanations. Poor 
Zoe ! One does not know all her history. She told me once 
that she had been very unhappy. I have heard her crying in 
her room at night. Perhaps she is to be more pitied than 
blamed. It is her husband whom I find it difficult to forgive 
and to forget. lie is like a nightmare ; he cannot be put so 
easily out of my mind.” 

“ Unfortunately, no. I, who have thought of him all my life, 
must continue to think of him.” 

“ You will forgive him, Philippa. You must. Besides, you 
have less to forgive. He has never offered his hand and heart 
to you.” 

Philippa blushed a rosy red, and confusion gathered to her 
eyes, because there had, in fact, been many occasions when 
things were said which — Armorel was sorry that she had 
said this. 

“ You mean, Armorel, that he actually — did this — to you?” 

“ Yes. It was only the other day — the morning after we 
read the play. He came to the National Gallery, where I often 
go in the morning, and, in one of the rooms, he told me how 
much he loved me — words, however, go for nothing in such 
things — and kindly said that marriage with me would complete 
his happiness.” 

“ Oh ! He is a villain — a villain indeed !” Her voice rose 
and her cheeks flushed. “ Forgive him, Armorel ? Never !” 

“ Considering that it was only a day or two before he was 
going to announce in the paper the fact that he had been mar- 
ried for three years, it does seem pretty bad, doesn’t it ?” 

“ And you, Armorel ?” 

“ Fortunately, I was able to dismiss him unmistakably.” 

“ Oh !” Philippa cried in exasperation. “ My cousin has 
been guilty of many treacherous and base actions ; but this is 
quite the worst thing that I have heard of him — worse even 
than sending you his own wife, under a false name and dis- 
guised with a lying story on her lips. No, Armorel ; I will 
never forgive him. Never!” Her eyes gleamed and her lips 
trembled. She meant what she said. “ Never ! It is the worst, 
the most wicked thing he has ever done — because he might 
have succeeded.” 

“ I suppose he meant to get something by the pretence.” 


354 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ He wanted, I suppose, to have it reported that lie was going 
to marry a rich girl. I had heard that he was continually seen 
with you. And I had also heard that he had confessed to an 
engagement which was not to he announced. My father has 
found out that his affairs are in great confusion.” 

“ But what good would an engagement of twenty -four hours 
do for him?” 

“Indeed, I do not understand. Perhaps, after all, he had 
allowed himself to fall in love — hut I do not know. Men some- 
times seem to hehave like mad creatures, with no reason or rule 
of self-control — as if there were no such thing as consequence 
and no such thing as the morrow. I do not understand any- 
thing about him. Why are his affairs in confusion ? He had, 
to begin with, a fortune of more than twelve thousand pounds 
from his mother ; his pictures latterly commanded a good price. 
And his paper is supposed to he doing well. To be sure, he 
keeps horses and goes a great deal into society. And, perhaps, 
his wife has been a source of expense to him. But it is no use 
trying to explain or to find out things. Meantime, to you, 
his conduct has been simply outrageous. A man who sends 
his own wife as companion to a girl, and then makes love to 
her, is — my dear, there is no other word — he is a wretch. I 
will never forgive him.” Armorel felt that she would keep her 
word. This pale, calm, self-contained Philippa could be moved 
to anger. And again she heard her companion’s soft voice 
murmuring, “My dear, the woman shows that she loves him 
still.” 

“ Fortunately for me,” said Armorel, “ my heart has remained 
untouched. I was never attracted by him ; and latterly, when 
I had learned certain things, it became impossible for me to re- 
gard him with common kindliness. And, besides, his pretence 
and affectation of love were too transparent to deceive anybody. 
He was like the worst actor you ever saw on any stage — wooden, 
unreal ; incapable of impressing any one with the idea that he 
meant what he said.” 

“ I wonder how far Zoe, his wife, knew of this ?” 

“ I would rather not consider the question, Philippa. But, in- 
deed, one cannot help, just at first, thinking about it ; and I am 
compelled to believe that she was his servant and his agent 
throughout. I believe she was instigated to get money from me 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


355 


if she could, and I believe she knew his intentions as regards 
me, and that she consented. She must have known, and she 
must have consented.” 

“ She would excuse herself on the ground of being his wife. 
For their husbands some women will do anything. Perhaps she 
worships him. His genius, very likely, overshadows and awes 
her.” Armorel smiled, but made no objection to this conject- 
ure. “ Some women worship the genius in a man as if it were 
the man himself. Some women worship the man quite apart 
from his genius. I used to worship Alec long before he was 
discovered to be a genius at all. When I was a school-girl, Alec 
was my knight — my Galahad, purest-hearted and bravest of all 
the knights. There was no one in the world — no living man, 
and very few dead men : Bayard, Sidney, and Charles the First, 
and two or three more only — who could stand beside him. He 
was so handsome, so brave, so great, and so good that other 
men seemed small beside him. Well, my hero passed through 
Cambridge without the least distinction. I thought it was be- 
cause he was too proud to show other men how easily he could 
beat them. Then he was called to the bar, but he did not irm 
mediately show his eloquence and his abilities ; that was be- 
cause he wanted an opportunity. And then I went out into the 
world, and made the discovery that my hero was, in reality, 
quite an ordinary young man — rather big and good-looking, per- 
haps — with, as we all thought then, no very great abilities. And 
he certainly was always, and he is still, heavy in conversation. 
But he was still my cousin, though he ceased to be my hero. 
He was more than a cousin — he was also my brother ; and broth- 
ers, as you do not know, perhaps, Armorel, sometimes do things 
which require vast quantities of patience and forgiveness. I am 
sure no girl’s brother ever wanted forgiveness more than my 
cousin Alec.” 

Her face, cold and pale, had, in fact, the sisterly expression. 
Philippa’s enemies always declared that, in the Composition and 
making of her, the goddess Venus, who presumably takes a 
large personal interest in the feminine department, had no lot 
or part at all. Yet certain words — the late companion’s words — 
kept ringing in Armorel’s ears : “ My dear, the woman loves him 
still. She has never ceased to love him.” 

“ There was nothing to forgive at first,” she went on ; “ on the 


356 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


contrary, everything to admire. Yet liis career has been through- 
out so unexpected as to puzzle and bewilder us. Consider, Armorel. 
Here was a young man who had never, in boyhood or later, shown 
the least love or leaning towards art or the least tinge of poetical 
feeling, or the smallest power as a raconteur , or any charm of 
writing, suddenly become a fine painter — a really fine painter — 
a respectable poet, and an admirable story-teller. When he be- 
gan with the first picture there grew up in my head a very im- 
aginative and certain set of ideas connecting the painter’s mind 
with his art. I saw a grave mind dwelling gravely and earnestly 
on the interpretation of nature. It seemed impossible that one 
who should so paint sea and shore should be otherwise than 
grave and serious. 

“ Impossible,” said Armorel. 

“ What we had called, in our stupidity, dulness, now became 
only seriousness. He took his art seriously. But then he be- 
gan to write verses, and then I found that there was a new 
mind — not a part of the new mind, but a new mind altogether. 
It was a mind with a light vein of fancy and merriment ; it was 
affectionate, sympathetic, and happy ; and it seemed distinctly 
a feminine mind. I cannot tell you how difficult it was to fit 
that mind to my cousin Alec. It was like dressing him up in 
a woman’s ill-fitting riding-habit. And then he began those 
stories of his — and, behold ! another mind altogether — this 
time a worldly mind — cynical, sarcastic, distrustful, epigram- 
matic, and heartless ; not at all a pleasant mind. So that you 
see I had four different minds all going about in the same set 
of bones: the original Alec Feilding, handsome and common- 
place, but a man of honor ; the serious student of art ; the 
light and gay-hearted poet, sparkling in his verses like a glass 
of champagne ; and the cynical man of the world, who does 
not believe that there are any men of honor or any good wom- 
en. Why, how can one man be at the same time four men ? 
It is impossible. And now we have a fifth development of 
Alec. He has become — at the same time — a creature who mar- 
ries a wife secretly, no one knows why, and hides her away for 
three years, and then suddenly produces her, no one knows why. 
What does he hide her away for ? Why does she consent to be 
hidden away ? Then, the very day before he has got to pro- 
duce his wife for all the world to see — I am perfectly certain 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


357 


that she herself forced him to take that step — he makes love to 
a young lady, and formally asks her to marry him. Reconcile, 
if you can, all these contradictions.” 

“ They cannot possibly be reconciled.” 

“ We have heard of seven devils entering into one man ; but 
never of angels and devils mixed, my dear. Such a man cannot 
be explained, any more than the Lady Melusina herself.” 

“ Do not let us try. As for me, I am going to forget the ex- 
istence of Mr. Alec Feilding, if I can. In order to do this the 
quicker, I mean to go home and stay there. Come and see me 
on the island of Samson, Philippa. But you must not bring your 
father, or he may be disappointed at the loss of his ancestral 
hall. To you I shall not mind showing the little house where 
your ancestors lived.” 

“I should like very much — above all things — to see the 
place.” 

“ I will bribe you to come. I have got a great silver punch- 
bowl — old silver, such as you love — for you. You shall have a 
choice of rings, a choice of snuff-boxes. There is a roll of lace 
put away in the cupboard that would make you a lovely dress. It 
will be like the receiving of presents which we read of in the 
old books.” 

“ I will try to come, Armorel, after the season.” 

Armorel laughed. 

“There is the difference between us, Philippa. You belong 
to the world, and I do not. Oh ! I will come back again some 
day, and look at it again. But it will always be a strange land 
to me. You will leave London after the season ; I am leaving 
it before the season. Come, however, when you can. Scilly is 
never too hot in summer nor too cold in winter. Instead of a 
carriage you shall have a boat, and instead of a coachman you 
shall have my boy Peter. We will sail about and visit the 
islands ; we will carry our midday dinner with us, and in the 
evening we will play and sing. Nobody will call upon you there ; 
there are no dinner-parties, and you need not bring an even- 
ing dress. The only audience to our music will be my old ser- 
vants, Justinian and Dorcas his wife, and Chessun and Peter, 
the boy.” 

There were no preparations to make ; there was nothing 


358 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


to prevent Armorel from going away immediately. She asked 
Effie to go with her. She opened the subject in the evening, 
when she and her brother and Roland were all sitting to- 
gether in her drawing-room by the light of the fire alone, which 
she loved. They were thoughtful and rather silent, conscious of 
recent events. 

“ While we were in Regent Street this afternoon, Effie,” said 
Armorel, “ I was thinking of the many happy faces that we 
met. The street seemed filled with happiness. I was wonder- 
ing if it were all real. Are they all as happy as they seem? 
Is there no falsehood in their lives ? The streets are filled with 
happy people ; the theatres are filled with happy faces ; society 
shows none but happy faces. It ought to be the happiest of 
worlds. Have we, alone, fallen among pretenders and in- 
triguers ?” 

“ They are gone from you, Armorel. Can you not forget them ?” 
Effie murmured. 

“ I seem to hear the murmuring voice of my companion al- 
ways. She whispers, in her caressing voice, ‘ Oh, my dear, he 
is so good and great ! He is so full of truth and honor ! Will 
you lend him a thousand pounds ? He thinks so highly of you ! 
A thousand pounds ? — two thousand pounds ! If I had it to lay 
at the feet of so much genius!’ And all the time she is his 
wife. And in my thoughts I am always hearing his voice, which 
I learned to hate, laying down a commonplace. And in my 
dreams I awake with a start, because he is making love to me 
while Zoe listens at the door.” 

“ You must go away somewhere,” said Roland. 

“ I shall go home — to my own place. Effie, will you come with 
me?” 

“ Go with you ? Oh — to Sicily ?” 

“ To the land of Lyonesse. I have arranged it all, dear. Archie 
shall have these rooms of mine to live in ; you shall come with 
me. It is two years since you have been out of London. Your 
cheeks are pale ; you want our sea-breezes and our upland downs. 
Will you come with me, Effie ?” 

She held out her hand. “ I will go with you,” said the girl, 
“ round the whole world, if you order me.” 

“ Then that is settled. Archie, you must stay, because your 
future demands it. I met Mr. Stephenson yesterday. He told 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


359 


me that he is in great hopes about the play, aud that meantime 
he will be able to put some work into your hands.” 

“You arc always thinking about me,” said Archie. 

“ Come to us in the summer. Take your holiday on Samson. 
Oh, Effie, we will be perfectly happy. We will forget London 
and everything that has happened. Thank Heaven, the rubies 
are gone ! I will send a piano there ; we will carry with us loads 
of books and music. We will have a perfectly lovely time, with 
no one but ourselves. Roland will tell you how we will live. You 
will do nothing for a time, while you are drinking in the fresh 
air and getting strong. Then — then — you shall have ideas — 
great and glorious ideas — and you shall write far, far better po- 
etry than you have attempted yet.” 

“And, meantime — we, who have to remain behind?” asked 
Roland. “ What shall we do when you are gone ?” 

It takes longer to get to Penzance than to Edinburgh, because 
the train ceases to run and begins to crawl as soon as it leaves 
Plymouth. The best way is to take the nine-o’clock train, and 
to travel all night. Then you will probably sleep from Reading 
to Bristol, from Bristol to Exeter, and from Exeter to Plymouth. 
After that you will keep awake. 

In this way and by this train Armorel and Effie travelled to 
Penzance. Effie fell asleep very soon, and remained asleep all 
night long, waking up somewhere between Lostwithiel and 
Marazion. Armorel sat up wakeful the whole night through, yet 
was not tired in the morning. Partly she was thinking of her 
stay in London, the crowning of her apprenticeship five years 
long. Nothing happened as she had expected. Nothing, in this 
life, ever does. She had found the hero of her dreams defeated 
and fallen, a pitiable object. But he stood erect again, better 
armed and in better heart, his face turned upwards. 

Partly, another thing filled her heart and made her wakeful. 

Roland and Archie came with them to the station. 

“ Shall I ever be permitted to visit again the land of Lyo- 
nesse?” whispered the former at the window just before the 
guard’s whistle gave the signal for the train to start. 

She gave him her hand. “Good-bye, Roland. You will 
come to Scilly — when you please — as soon as you can.” 

He held her hand. 


360 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ I live only in that hope,” he replied. 

The train began to move, lie bent and kissed her fingers. 
She leaned forward. “ Roland,” she said, “ I also live only 
in that hope.” 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

NOT THE HEIR, AFTER ALL. 

The storm expended itself. The gale cannot go on blowing ; 
the injured man cannot go on raging, cursing, or weeping. 
Alec Feilding became calm. Yet a settled gloom rested like a 
dark cloud upon his front ; he had lost something — a good part 
— of his pristine confidence. That enviable quality which so 
much impresses- itself upon others — called swagger — had been 
knocked out of him. Indeed, he had sustained a blow from 
which he would never wholly recover : such a man could never 
get over the loss of such a fortune. His great-grandfather, so 
far as could be learned, lost his fortune and began again, with 
cheerful heart. Alec would begin again, because he must, but 
with rage and bitterness. It was like being struck down by 
an incurable disease ; it might be alleviated, but it would never 
be driven out ; from time to time, in spite of the physicians, 
the patient writhes and groans in the agony of this disease. 
So from time to time will this man, until the end of time, groan 
and lament over the wicked waste and loss of that superb in- 
heritance. 

Of course he disguised from himself — this is one of the 
tilings men always do hide away — the fact that he himself was 
part and parcel of the deed ; he had destroyed himself by his 
own craft and cunning. Had he not placed his wife with Ar- 
morel under instructions to persuade and coax her into advanc- 
ing money for his own purposes, the thing could never have 
happened. 

Henceforth, though the pair should have the desire of their 
hearts ; though they should march on to wealth and success ; 
though the wife should invent and contrive with the cleverness 
of ten for the good of the firm ; though the husband should 
grow more and more in the estimation ot the outer world into 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


361 


the position of a master and an authority ; between the two 
will lie the memory of fraud and crime, to divide them and 
keep them apart. 

On the day after the revelation, a thought came into the mind 
of the inheritor of the rubies. The thing that had happened 
unto him — could he cause it to happen unto another? Perhaps 
one remembers how, on learning that the rubies were to be 
given to the eldest grandson of the second daughter, he had 
dropped, limp and pale, into a chair. One may also remember 
how, on learning that no further investigation would be made, 
he recovered again. The fact was, you see, that Mr. Jagenal 
had made a little mistake. His searchers had altered the order 
of the three sisters. Frances, Alec Feilding’s grandmother, was 
not the second, but the third daughter. When the rubies were 
actually waiting and ready for him, it would have been foolish to 
mention that fact, especially as no further search was to be made 
and the elder branch, wherever it was, would never know any- 
thing of the matter at all. Therefore, he then held his tongue. 

Now, on the other hand, the jewels being worthless, he 
thought, first of all, that it would look extremely scrupulous to 
inform Mr. Jagenal of the discovery that his grandmother was 
really the third daughter ; next, if the other branch should be 
discovered, the fortunate heir would, like himself, be raised to 
the heavens only to be dashed down again to earth. Let some 
one else, as well as himself, experience the agonies of that fall. 
He chuckled grimly as he considered the torments in store for 
this fortunate unknown cousin. As for danger to his wife, he 
considered rightly that there was none ; the stones had been 
consigned to the bank by Armorel, and in her own name ; she 
signed an order for their delivery to Mr. Jagenal; he had kept 
them in his safe. They would certainly lie there some time 
before he found the new heir. Nay. They had been in his 
custody for five years before he gave them over formally to 
Armorel. Who could say when the robbery had been effected ? 
Who would think of asking the bank whether during the short 
time the parcel was held in the name of Armorel it had been 
taken out? Clearly the whole blame and responsibility lay 
with Mr. Jagenal himself. He would have a very curious prob- 
lem to solve — namely, how the rubies had been changed in his 
own safe. 

16 


362 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ Well, Alec, come to take away your rubies ?” asked Mr. 
Jagenal, cheerily. “ There they are in that safe.” 

“ No,” he replied, sadly. “ I am grieved indeed to say that I 
have not come for the rubies. I shall never come for the rubies.” 

“Why not?” 

“Because they arc not for me. According to your instruc- 
tions, I have no claim to them.” 

“ No claim ?” 

“I understand that Miss Rosevean intends to give these 
jewels to the first representative of the family of Robert Fletch- 
er. That is to say, to the eldest grandchild of the first, second, 
or third daughter, as the case may be ?” 

“ That is so.” 

“Very well. The eldest daughter left no children. You 
therefore sent for me as the eldest — and only — grandchild of 
the second daughter?” 

“ I did.” 

“ Then I have to tell you that you are wrong. My grand- 
mother was the third daughter.” 

“ Is it possible ?” 

“ Quite possible. She was the third daughter. I was not 
very accurately acquainted with that part of my genealogy, and 
the other day I could not have told you whether I came from 
the second or the third daughter. I have since ascertained the 
facts. It was the second daughter who went away to Austra- 
lia or New Zealand, or somewhere. I do not know anything at 
all about my cousins, but I think it very unlikely that there are 
none in existence.” 

“ Very unlikely. What proof have you that your grand- 
mother was the third daughter ?” 

“ I have an old family Bible — I can show it you, if you like. 
In this has been entered the date of the birth, the place and 
date of baptism, the names of the sponsors of all three sisters. 
There is also a note on the second sister’s marriage and on her 
emigration. I assure you there can be no doubt on the subject 
at all.” 

“ Oh ! This is very disastrous, my dear boy. How could 
my people have made such a mistake ? Alec, I feel for you — I 
do, indeed 1” 

“ It is most disastrous !” Alec echoed, with a groan. “ I have 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


363 


been in the unfortunate position of a man who is suddenly put 
into possession of a great fortune one day, and as suddenly de- 
prived of it the next. Of course, as soon as I discovered the 
real facts, it became my duty to acquaint you with them.” 

“By George!” cried Mr. Jagenal. “If you had kept the 
facts to yourself, no one would ever have been any wiser. No 
one, because the transfer of the property is a sheer gift made 
by my client to you without any compulsion at all. It is a 
private transaction of which I should never have spoken to any 
one. Well, Alec, I must not say that you are wrong. But 
many men — most men perhaps — with a less keen sense of honor 
than you — well — I say no more. Yet the loss and disappoint- 
ment must be a bitter pill for you.” 

“ It is a bitter pill,” he replied, truthfully. “ More bitter than 
you would suspect.” 

“ You will have the satisfaction of feeling that you have be- 
haved in this matter as a man of the strictest honor.” 

“I am very glad, considering all things, that I have not had 
the rubies in my own possession, even for a single hour.” 

“That is nothing; of course they would have been safe in 
your hands. Well, Alec, I am sorry for you. But you are 
young; you are clever; you are succeeding hand over hand; 
pay a little more attention to your daily expenses, put down 
your horses and live for a few years quietly, and you will make 
your own fortune — ay, a fortune greater far than was contained 
in this unlucky case of precious stones.” 

“ I suppose you will renew your search, now, after the de- 
scendants of the second daughter ?” 

“ I suppose we must. Do not forget that if there are no de- 
scendants — or, which is much the same thing, if we cannot find 
them in a reasonable time, I shall advise my client to transfer 
the jewels to the grandson of the third daughter. And I hope, 
my dear boy — I hope, I say, that we may never find those de- 
scendants.” 

Alec departed, a little cheered by the consolation that he had 
passed on the disappointment to another.” 

He went home, and found his wife in the studio, apparently 
waiting for him. There were dark rings round her eyes. She 
had been weeping. Since the storm they had not spoken to 
each other. 


364 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


He sat down at his table — it was perfectly bare of papers — 
no sign of any work at all upon it — and waited for her to 
begin. 

“Is it not time,” she asked, “that this should cease? You 
have reproached me enough, I think. Remember, we are on 
the same level. But, whatever I have done, it was done for 
your sake. Whatever you have done, was done for your own 
sake. Now, is there going to be an end to this situation ?” 

He made a gesture of impatience. 

“ Understand clearly — if I am to help you for the future ; if 
I am going to pull you through this crisis ; if I am to direct 
and invent and combine for you, I mean to be treated with the 
semblance of kindness — the show of politeness at least.” 

He sat up, moved by this appeal, which, indeed, was to his 
purse — that is, to his heart. 

“ I say, my husband,” she repeated, “ you must understand 
me clearly. Again, what I have done was done for you — for 
you. Unless you agree to my conditions it shall have been 
done — for myself. I have four thousand pounds in the bank 
in my own name. You cannot touch it. I shall go away and 
live upon that money — apart from you. And you shall have 
nothing — nothing — unless — ” 

“Unless what?” He shook off his wrath with a mighty ef- 
fort, as a sulky boy shakes off his sulks when he perceives that 
he must, and that instantly. He threw off his wrath and sat up 
with a wan semblance of a smile, a spectral smile, feebly paint- 
ed on his lips. “Unless what, Zoe? My dear child, can you 
not make allowance for a man tried in this terrible fashion ? I 
don’t believe that any man w T as ever so mocked by fortune. I 
have been crushed. Yes, any terms, any condition you please. 
Let us forget the past. Come, dear, let us forget what has 
happened.” He sprang to his feet and held out his arms. 

She hesitated a moment. “There is no other place for us 
now,” she murmured. We are on the same level. I am all 
yours — now.” 

Then she drew herself away, and turned again to the table. 
“ Come, Alec,” she said, “ to business. Time presses. Sit down, 
and give me all your attention.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


365 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE DESERT ISLAND. 

The train proceeded slowly along the head of Mount’s Bay, 
the waters of the high tide washing up almost to the sleepers on 
the line. A rm orel let down the window and looked out across 
the bay — 

“Where the great vision of the guarded Mount 
Looks towards Namaneos and Bayona’s hold.” 

“ See, Effie !” she cried. “ There is Mount’s Bay. There is 
the Lizard. There is Penzance. x\nd there — oh ! there is the 
Mount itself !” 

St. Michael’s Mount, always weird and mysterious, rose out of 
the waters wrapped in a thin white cloud, which the early sun 
had not yet been able to dissipate. I am told there is a very 
fine modern house upon the Mount. I prefer not to believe that 
story. The place should always remain lonely, awful, full of 
mystery and wonder. There is also said to he a battery with 
guns upon it. Perhaps. But there are much more wonder- 
ful things than these to tell of the rock. Upon its highest 
point those gallant miners — Captain Caractac and Captain Caer- 
leon, both of Boadicea Wheal — were wont to stand gazing out 
upon the stretch of waters, expecting the white sails and flash- 
ing oars of the Phoenician fleet, come to buy their white and 
precious tin, with strong wines from Syria and spices from the 
far East, and purple robes and bronze swords and spear-heads, 
far better than those made by Flint Jack of the Ordnance De- 
partment. Hither came white-robed priests with flowing beards 
and solemn faces — faces supernaturally solemn, till they were 
alone upon the rock. Then, perhaps, an eyelid trembled. 
What they did I know not, nor did the people, but it was some- 
thing truly awful, with majestic rites and ineffable mysteries 
and mumbo-jumbo of the very noblest. Here St. Michael him- 
self once, in the ages of faith, condescended to appear. It was 


366 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


to a hermit. Such appearances were the prizes of the profes- 
sion. Many went a-hermiting in hopes of getting a personal 
call from a saint who would otherwise have fought and lived 
and died quite like the rest of the world. And, indeed, there 
were so many Cornish saints — such as St. Buryan, St. Levan, St. 
Ives, St. Just, St. Ke verne, St. Anthony, not to speak of St. 
Erth, St. Gulval, St. Austell, St. Wenn — all kindly disposed 
saints, anxious to encourage hermits, and pleased to extend 
their own sphere of usefulness, that few of these holy men were 
disappointed. 

In the bay the blue water danced lightly in the morning 
breeze ; the low, level sunlight shone on Penzance ©n the west- 
ern side ; the fishing-boats, back from the night’s cruise, lay at 
their moorings, their brown sails lowered; the merchantmen 
and trading craft were crowded in the port ; beyond, the white 
curves chased each other across the water, and showed that, 
outside, the breeze was fresh and the water lively. 

“ We are almost at home,” said Armorel. “ There is our 
steamer lying off the quay — she looks very little, doesn’t she? 
Only a short voyage of forty miles — oh ! Effie, I do hope you 
are a good sailor — and we shall be at Hugh Town.” 

“ Are we really arrived ? I believe I have slept the whole 
night through,” said Effie, sitting up and pulling herself straight. 
“ Oh ! how lovely !” — as she, too, looked out of the window. 
“ Have you slept well, Armorel ?” 

“ I don’t think I have been asleep much. But I am quite 
happy, Effie, dear — quite as happy as if I had been sound asleep 
all night. There are dreams, you know, which come to people 
in the night when they are awake as well as when they are asleep. 
I have been dreaming all night long — one dream which lasted 
all the night — one voice in my ears — one hand in mine. Oh, 
Effie, I have been quite happy !” She showed her happiness by 
kissing her companion. “ I am happier than I ever thought to 
be. Some day, perhaps, I shall be able to tell you why.” 

And then the train rolled in to Penzance Station. 

It was only half-past seven in the morning. The steamer 
would not start till half-past ten. The girls sent their luggage 
on board, and then went to one of the hotels which stand all in 
a row facing the Esplanade. Here they repaired the ravages of 
the night, which makes even a beautiful girl like Armorel show 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


367 


like Beauty neglected, and then they took breakfast, and, in due 
time, went on board. 

Now, behold ! They had left in London a pitiless nor’-easter 
and black sky. They found at Penzance a clear blue overhead, 
light and sunshine, and a glorious northwesterly breeze. That 
is not, certainly, the quarter whose winds allay the angry waves 
and soothe the heaving surge. Not at all. It is when the wind 
is from the northwest that the waves rise highest and heaviest. 
Then the boat bound to Scilly tosses and rolls like a round cork, 
yet persistently forces her way westward, diving, ploughing, 
climbing, slipping, sliding, and rolling, shipping great seas and 
shaking them off again, always getting ahead somehow. Then 
those who come forth at the start with elastic step and lofty 
looks lie low, and wish that some friend would prod Father 
Time with a bradawl and make him run ; and those who enjoy 
the sea, sir, and are never sick, are fain to put down the pipe 
with which they proudly started and sink into nothingness. 
For taking the conceit out of a young man there is nothing bet- 
ter than the voyage from Penzance to Scilly, especially if it be 
a tripper’s voyage — that is, back again the same day. 

There is, on the Scilly boat, a cabin, or, rather, a roofed and 
walled apartment, within which is the companion to the saloon. 
Nobody ever goes into the saloon, though it is magnificent with 
red velvet, but round this roofed space there is a divan or sofa. 
And here lie the weak and fearful, and all those who give in, 
and oppose no further resistance to the soft influences of ocean. 
Effie lay here, white of cheek and motionless. She had never 
been on the sea before, and she had a rough and tumbling day 
to begin with, and the sea in glory and grandeur — but all was 
lost and thrown away, so far as she was concerned. Armorel 
stood outside, holding to the ropes with both hands. She was 
dressed in a waterproof ; the spray flew over her ; her cheek 
was wet with it ; her eyes were bright with it ; the heavy seas 
dashed over her ; she laughed, and shook her waterproof ; as 
for boots, what Scillonian regardeth them ? And the wind — how 
it blew through and through her ! How friendly was its rough 
welcome ! How splendid to be once more on rough water, the 
boat fighting against a head wind and rolling waves ! How glo- 
rious to look out once more upon the wild, ungoverned weaves ! 

It was not until the boat had rounded the Point and was well 


368 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


out in the open that these things became really enjoyable. Away 
south stood the Wolf, with its tall light-house ; you could see 
the white waves boiling and fighting around it, and climbing 
half-way up. Beyond the Wolf a great ocean steamer plunged 
through the water, outward bound. Presently there came fly- 
ing past them the most beautiful thing ever invented by the wit 
of man or made by his craft, a three-masted schooner under full 
sail — all sails spread — not forging slowly along under poverty- 
stricken stays, which proclaim an insufficient crew, but flying 
over the water under all her canvas. She was a French boat, of 
Havre. 

“There is Scilly, miss,” said the steward, pointing out to sea. 

Yes ; low down the land lay, west by north. It looked like 
a cloud at first. Every moment it grew clearer ; but always low 
down. What one sees at first are the eastern shores of St. Agnes 
and Gugli, St. Mary’s, and the Eastern Islands. They are all 
massed together, so that the eye cannot distinguish one from 
the other, but all seem to form continuous land. By degrees 
they separated. Then one could discover the South Channel 
and the North Channel. When the tide is high and the weather 
fair the boat takes the former ; at low tide the latter. To-day 
the captain chose the South Channel. And now they were so 
near the land that Armorel could make out Porthellick Bay ; 
and her heart beat, though she was going home to no kith or 
kin, and to nothing but her familia , her serving-folk. Next she 
made out Giants’ Castle, then the Old Town, then Peninnis Head, 
black and threatening. And now they were so near that every 
earn and every boulder upon it could be made out clearly ; and 
one could see the water rising and falling at the foot of the rock, 
and hear it roaring as it was driven into the dark caves and the 
narrow places where the rocks opened out and made make- 
believe of a port or haven of refuge. And now Porthcressa 
Bay, and now the Garrison, and smooth water. 

Then Armorel brought out Effie, pale and languid. “Now, 
dear, the voyage is over ; we are in smooth water, and shall be 
in port in ten minutes. Look round — it is all over ; we are in 
the Road. And over there — see ! — with his twin hills — is my 
dear old Samson.” 

There was a little crowd on the quay, waiting to see the boat 
arrive. All of them — boatmen, fishermen, and flower-farmers’ 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


369 


men, to say nothing of those representing the interests of com- 
merce — pressed forward to welcome Armorel. Everybody re- 
membered her ; but now she was a grand young lady, who had 
left them a simple child. They shook hands with her and stepped 
aside. And then Peter came forward, looking no older, but cer- 
tainly no younger, and Armorel shook hands with him, too. He 
had the boat alongside, and in five minutes more the luggage 
was on board, the mast was up, the sail set, and Armorel was 
sitting in her old place, the strings in her hand, while Peter 
held the rope and looked out ahead, shading his eyes with his 
right hand, in the old familiar style. 

“ It is as if I never left home at all,” said Armorel. “ I sailed 
like this with Peter yesterday — and the day before.” 

“ You’ve growed,” said Peter, after an inquiring gaze, being 
for the moment satisfied that there was nothing ahead, and that 
there was no immediate danger of shipwreck on the Nut Rock 
or Green Island. 

“ I am five years older,” Armorel replied. 

“ It’s been a rare harvest this year,” he went on. “ I thought 
we should never come to the end of the daffodils.” 

“ Now I am at home indeed,” said Armorel, “ when I hear the 
old, old talk about the flowers. To-morrow, Effie, I will show 
you our little fields where we grow all the lovely flowers — the 
anemone and jonquil, the narcissus and the daffodil. This af- 
ternoon, when we have had dinner and rested a little, I will take 
you all round Samson, and show you the glories of the place ; 
they are principally views of other islands ; but there is a head- 
land and two bays, and there are the Tombs of the Kings — the 
ancient kings of Lyonesse — in one of them Roland Lee” — she 
blushed and turned away her head — henceforth, she understood, 
this was a name to be treated with more reverence — “ found a 
golden torque, which you have seen me wear. And, oh ! my 
dear — you shall be so happy ; the sea-breeze shall fill your soul 
with music; the sea-birds shall sing to you; the very waves 
shall lap on the shore in rhyme and rhythm for you ; and the 
sun of Scilly, which is so warm and glowing, but never too 
warm, shall color that pale cheek of yours, and fill out that spare 
form. And, oh, Effie, I hope you will not get tired of Samson 
and of me ! We are two maidens living on a desert island ; 
there is nobody to talk to except each other ; we shall wander 
16 * 


370 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


about together as we list. Oh, I am so happy, Effie ! — and, oh, 
my dear, I am so hungry !” 

The boat ran up over the white sand of the beach. They 
jumped out, and Armorel, leaving Peter to bring along the 
trunks by the assistance of the donkey, led the way over the 
southern hill to Holy Farm. 

“ Effie,” she said, “ I have been tormented this morning with 
the fear that everything would look small. I was afraid that 
my old memories — a child’s memories — would seem distorted 
and exaggerated. Now I am not in the least afraid. Samson 
has got his eighty acres still ; he looks quite as big and quite as 
homely as ever he did — the boulders are as huge, the rocks are 
as steep. I remember every boulder, Effie, and every bush, and 
every patch of brown fern, and almost every trailing branch of 
bramble. How glorious it is here ! How the sea-breeze sweeps 
across the hill — it comes all the way from America — across the 
Atlantic ! Effie, I declare you are looking rosier already. I 
must sing — I must, indeed — I always used to sing! — ” She 
threw up her arms in the old gesture, and sang a loud and clear 
and joyous burst of song — sang like the lark springing from the 
ground, because it cannot choose but sing. “ I used to jump, 
too ; but I do not want, somehow, to jump any more. Ah, Effie, 
I was quite certain there would be some falling-off, but I could 
not tell in what direction. I can no longer jump. That comes 
of getting old. To be sure, I did not jump when I took Roland 
Lee about the islands. I sang, but I was ashamed to jump. 
Here we are upon the top. It is not a mighty Alp, is it ? — but 
it serves. Look round — but only for a moment, because Chessun 
will have dinner waiting for us, and you are exhausted. This 
is our way, down the narrow lanes. Here our fields begin ; they 
are each about as big as a dinner-table. See the tall hedges to 
keep off the north wind ; there is a field of narcissus, but there 
are no more flowers, and the leaves are dying away. This way ! 
Ah ! Here we are !” 

The house did not look in the least mean, or any smaller than 
Armorel expected. She became even prouder of it. Where 
else could one find a row of palms, with great verbena-trees and 
prickly pear and aloes, not to speak of the creepers over the 
porch, the gilt figure-head, and the big ship’s lantern hung in 
the porch ? Within, the sunlight poured into the low rooms — 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


371 


all of them looking south — and made them bright. In the room 
where formerly the ancient lady passed her time in the hooded 
chair — the lady passed away and the chair gone — the cloth was 
spread for dinner. And in the porch were gathered the serving- 
folk — Justinian not a day older, Dorcas unchanged, and Chessun 
thin and worn, almost as old, to look at, as her mother. And as 
soon as the greetings were over, and the questions asked and an- 
swered, and the news told of the harvest and the prices, and the 
girls had run all over the house, Chessun brought in the dinner. 

It is a blessed thing that we must eat, because upon this neces- 
sity we have woven so many pretty customs. We eat a welcome 
home ; we eat a godspeed ; we eat together because we love each 
other ; we eat to celebrate anything and everything. Above all, 
upon such an event as the return of one who has long been 
parted from us we make a little banquet. Thought and pains 
had been bestowed upon the dinner which Chessun placed upon 
the table. Dorcas stood by the table, watching the effect of her 
cares. First there was a chicken roasted, with bread-crumbs — 
a bird blessed with a delicacy of flavor and a tenderness of flesh 
and a willingness to separate at the joints unknown beyond the 
shores of Scilly; Dorcas said so, and the girls believed it — 
Effie, at least, willing to believe that nothing in the world was 
so good as in this happy realm of Queen Armorel. Dorcas also 
invited special attention to the home-cured ham, which was, she 
justly remarked, mild as a peach ; the potatoes, served in their 
skins, were miracles of mealiness — had Armorel met with such 
potatoes out of Samson ? had the young lady, her visitor, ever 
seen or dreamed of such potatoes? There. was spinach grown 
on the farm, freshly cut, redolent of the earth, fragrant with 
the sea-breeze. And there was home-made bread, sweet, whole- 
some, and firm. There was also placed upon the table a Brown 
George, filled with home-brewed, furnished with a head snow- 
white, venerable, and benevolent, such a head as not all the 
breweries of Burton — or even of the whole House of Lords 
combined — could furnish. Alas ! that head smiled in vain upon 
this degenerate pair. They would not drink the nut-brown, 
sparkling beer. It was not wasted, however. Peter had it 
when he brought the pack-ass to the porch laden with the last 
trunk. Nor did they so much as remove the stopper from the 
decanter containing a bottle of the famous blackberry wine, the 


372 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


primest era of Samson, opened expressly for tliis dinner. Yet 
this was not wasted either, for Justinian, who knew a glass of 
good wine, took it with three successive suppers. Is it beneath 
the dignity of history to mention pudding? Consider. Pud- 
ding is festive ; pudding contributes largely to the happiness of 
youth. Armorel and Efiie tackled the pudding as only the young 
and hungry can. And this day, perhaps from the promptings 
of simple piety, being rejoiced that Armorel was back again ; 
perhaps from some undeveloped touch of poetry in her nature, 
Chessun placed upon the table that delicacy seldom seen at the 
tables of the unfortunate great — who really get so few of the 
good things — known as Grateful Pudding. You know the in- 
gredients of this delightful dish ? More. To mark the day, 
Chessun actually made it with cream instead of milk ! 

“To-morrow,” said Armorel, fired with emulation, “I will 
show you, Effie, what I can do in the way of puddings and 
cakes. I always used to make them ; and, unless my lightness 
of hand has left me, I think you will admire my tea-cakes, if 
not my puddings. Roland Lee praised them both. But, to be 
sure, he was so easily pleased. He liked everything on the isl- 
and. He even liked — oh ! Effie ! — he liked me.” 

“ That was truly wonderful, Armorel.” 

“ Now, Effie dear, lie down in this chair beside the wdndow. 
You can look straight out to sea — that is Bishop’s Rock, with 
its light-house. Lie down and rest, and I will talk to you about 
Scilly and Samson and my own people. Or I will play to you 
if you like. I am glad the new piano has arrived safely.” 

“ I like to look round this beautiful old room. How strange 
it is ! I have never seen such a room — with things so odd.” 

“ They are all things from foreign lands, and things cast up 
by the sea. If you like odd things I will show you, presently, 
my punch-bowls and the snuff-boxes and watches and things. I 
did not give all of them to the care of Mr. Jagenal five years ago. - ” 

“ It is wonderful — it is lovely — as if one could ever tire of 
such a place !” 

“Lie down, dear, and rest. You have had such a tossing 
about that you must rest after it, or you may be ill. It prom- 
ises to be a fine and clear evening. If it is we will go out by 
and by and see the sun set behind the Western Rocks.” 

“ We are on a desert island,” Effie murmured obediently, ly- 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


373 


ing down and closing her eyes. “Nobody here hut ourselves; 
we can do exactly what we please ; think of it, Armorel ! No- 
body wants any money, here ; nobody jostles his neighbor ; 
nobody tramples upon his friend. It is like a dream of the 
primitive life.” 

“ With improvements, dear Effie. My ancestors used to lead 
the primitive life when Samson was a holy island and the ceme- 
tery of the kings of Lyonesse ; they went about barefooted and 
they were dressed in skins ; they fought the wolves and bears, 
and if they did not kill the creatures, why, the creatures killed 
them ; they were always fighting the nearest tribe. And they 
sucked the marrow-bones, Effie, think of that ! Oh ! we have 
made a wonderful advance in the civilization of Samson Island.” 


CHAPTER XX Y III. 

AT HOME. 

“I am so very pleased to see you here, Mr. Stephenson.” 
Mrs. Feilding welcomed him with her sweetest and most gra- 
cious smile. “To attract our few really sincere critics — there 
are so many incompetent pretenders — as well as the leaders in 
all the arts, is my great ambition. And now you have come.” 

“ You are very kind,” said Dick, blushing. I dare say he is a 
really great critic at the hours when he is not a most superior 
clerk in the Admiralty. At the same time, one is not often told 
the whole, the naked, the gratifying truth. 

“ To have a salon , that is my desire ; to fill it with men of 
light and leading. Now you have broken the ice, you will come 
often, will you not? . Every Sunday evening, at least. My hus- 
band will be most pleased to find you here.” 

“ Again, you are very kind.” 

“ We saw you yesterday afternoon at that poor boy’s matinee; 
did we not ? The crush was too great for us to exchange a word 
with you. What do you think of the piece ?” 

“ I always liked it. I was present, you know, at the reading 
that night.” 

“ Oh, yes ; the reading — Armorel Rosevean’s Reading. Yes. 
Though that hardly gave one an idea of the play.” 


374 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“The piece went very well indeed. I should think it will 
catch on ; but of course the public are very capricious. One 
never knows whether they will take to a thing or not. To my 
mind there is every prospect of success. In any case, young 
Wilmot has shown that he possesses poetical and dramatic pow- 
ers of a very high order indeed. He seems the most promising 
of the men before us at present. That is, if he keeps up to the 
standard of this first effort.” 

“Ye — es? Of course we must discount some of the promise. 
You have heard, for instance, that my husband lent his advice 
and assistance ?” 

“ He said so, after the reading, did he not ?” 

“Nobody knows, Mr. Stephenson,” she clasped her hands 
and turned her limpid eyes upon the young man, “ how many 
successes my husband has helped to make by his timely assist- 
ance ! What he did to this particular play I do not know, of 
course. During the reading and during yesterday’s perform- 
ance, I seemed to hear his voice through all the acts. It haunt- 
ed me. But Alec said nothing. He sat in silence, smiling, as 
if he had never heard the words before. Oh ! It is wonderful ! 
And now — not a word of recognition ! You help people to 
climb up, and then they pretend — they pretend — to have got 
up by their own exertions ! Not that Alec expects gratitude 
or troubles himself much about these things, but, naturally, I 
feel hurt. And oh ! Mr. Stephenson, what must be the con- 
science of the man — how can he bear to live — who goes about 
the world pretending — pretending,” she shook her head sadly, 
“pretending to have written other men’s works !” 

“ Men will do anything, I suppose. This kind of assistance 
ought, however, to be recognized. I will make some allusion to 
it in my notice of the play. Meantime, if I can read the future 
at all, Master Archie Wilmot’s fortune is made, and he will.” 

“ Mr. Roland Lee showed his picture that night. He had 
just come out of a madhouse, had he not?” 

“ Not quite that. He failed, and dropped out. But what he 
did with himself or how he lived for three years I do not ex- 
actly know. He has returned, and never alludes to that time.” 

“ And he imitates my husband.” 

“ No, no — not exactly. The resemblance is close, only an 
experienced critic ” — Oh ! Dick Stephenson ! — “ could discern 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


375 


the real differences of treatment.” Mrs. Feilding smiled. “ But 
I knew him before he disappeared, and I assure yon his method 
was then the same as it is now. Very much like your hus- 
band’s style, yet with a difference.” 

“ I am glad there is a difference. You know, I suppose, that 
Armorel has gone away ?” 

“ I have heard so.” 

“ It became possible for us at last to acknowledge things. 
So I joined my husband. Armorel went home — to her own 
home in the Scilly Islands. She took Effie Wilmot with her. 
Indeed, the girl’s flatteries have become necessary to her. I 
fear she was unhappy, poor child ! I sometimes think, Mr. 
Stephenson, that she saw too much of Alec. Of course he was 
a good deal with us, and I could not tell him the whole truth, 
and — and — girls’ heads are easily turned, you know, when gen- 
ius seems to be attracted. Poor Armorel 1” she sighed, playing 
with her fan. “ Time, I dare say, will help her to forget.” 

“ It is a pity,” said Dick Stephenson, changing the subject, 
because he did not quite believe this version — “ it is a pity that 
Mr. Feilding, who can give such admirable advice to a young 
dramatist, does not write a play himself.” 

“ Hush 1” she looked all round, “ nobody is listening ? Alec 
has written a play, Mr. Stephenson. It is a three-act drama — a 
tragedy — strong — oh ! so strong — so strong !” She clasped her 
hands again, letting the fan dangle from her wrist. “ So effec- 
tive ! I don’t know when I have seen a play with more striking 
situations. It is accepted. But not a word has yet been said 
about it.” 

“May I say something about it? Will you let me be the 
first to announce it, and to give some little account of it.” 

“ I will ask Alec. If he consents, I will tell you more about 
the play. And, my dear Mr. Stephenson, you, one of our old 
friends, really ought to do some work for the paper.” 

“ I have not been asked,” he replied, coloring, for he was still 
at that stage when the dramatic critic is flattered by being in- 
vited to write for a paper. 

“You shall be. How do you like the paper?” 

“ It has so completely changed its character, one would think 
that the whole staff had been changed. Everybody reads it 
now, and everybody takes it, I believe.” 


37G 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“The circulation lias gone up by leaps and bounds. It is 
really wonderful. But, Mr. Stephenson, here is one of the rea- 
sons. Give me a little credit — poor me ! I cannot write, but 
I can look on, and I have a pair of eyes, and I can see things. 
Now, I saw that Alec was killing himself with writing. Every 
week a story ; also, every week, a poem ; every week an original 
article ; and then those notes. I made him stop. I said to 
him , 1 Stamp your own individuality on every line of the paper; 
but write it yourself no longer. Edit it.’ You see, it is not as 
if Alec had to prove his powers ; he has proved them already. 
So he can afford to let others do the hard work, while he adds 
the magic touch — the touch of genius — that touch that goes to 
the heart. And the result you see.” 

“Yes; the brightest — cleverest — most varied paper that 
exists.” 

“ With a large staff. Formerly Alec and one or two others 
formed the whole staff. Well, Mr. Stephenson, I know that 
Alec is going to ask you to do some of the dramatic criticism, 
and if you consent I shall be very pleased to have been the first 
to mention it.” 

It will be understood from this conversation that the new 
methods of managing the business of the firm were essentially 
different from the old. The paper had taken a new departure ; 
it prospered. It was understood that the editor put less of his 
own work into it ; but the articles, verses, and stories were all 
unsigned, and no one could tell exactly which were his papers ; 
therefore, as all were clever, his reputation remained on the same 
level. Also, there was a thick and solid mass of advertisements 
each week, which represented public confidence widespread and 
deep. “ Give me,” cries the proprietor of a paper, “ the confi- 
dence of advertisers. That is proof enough of popularity.” 

Mrs. Feilding moved to another part of the room, and began 
to talk with another man. 

“ My husband,” she said, “ has prepared a little surprise for 
us this evening. I say for us, because I have not seen what he 
has to show — since it came back from the frame-maker.” 

“ It is a picture, then ?” 

“A picture in a new style. He has abandoned for a time 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. Stf 

his coast and sea-shore studies. This is in quite a new style. 

I think — I hope — that it will he liked as well as his old.” 

“ He is indeed a wonderful man !” 

“ Is he not ?” She laughed — a low and musical — a contented 
and a happy laugh. “Is he not? You never know what Alec 
may be going to do next.” 

Mrs. Feilding’s Sundays have already become a great success ; 
such a success as a woman of the world may desire, and a clever 
woman can achieve. There is once more, as she says proudly, 
a salon in London. If it does not quite take the lead that she 
pretends in art and letters, it is always full. Men who go there 
once, go again ; they find the kind of entertainment that they 
like; plenty of people for talk, to begin with. Then, every man 
is made, by the hostess, to feel that his own position in the lit- 
erary and artistic world is above even his own estimate ; that is 
soothing; in fact, the note of the salon is appreciation — not 
mutual admiration, as the envious do enviously affirm. More- 
over, everybody in the salon has done something — perhaps not 
much, but something. And then the place is one where the talk 
is delightfully free, almost as free as in a club smoking-room. 
Every evening, again, there is some kind of entertainment, but 
not too much, because the salon has to keep up its reputation 
for conversation, and music destroys conversation. “ Let us,” 
said Mrs. Feilding, “revive the dead art of conversation. Let 
the men in this room make their reputation as they did a hun- 
dred years ago, for brilliant talk.” I have not heard that Mrs. 
Feilding has yet developed a talker like the mighty men of 
old ; perhaps one will come along later ; those, however, who 
have looked into the subject with an ambition in that line, and 
have ascertained the nature of the epigrams, repartees, retorts, 
quips, jokes, and personal observations attributed to Messrs. 
Douglas Jerrold and his brilliant circle are doubtful of reviving 
the art except in a modified and a greatly chastened, even an 
effeminate, form. 

The entertainments provided by Mrs. Feilding consisted of 
a little music or a little singing — always by a young and little- 
known professional ; there was generally something in the fash- 
ion — young lady with a banjo or a tum-tum, or anything which 
was popular ; young gentlemen to whistle ; young actor or ac- 
tress to give a character sketch ; sometimes a picture sent in 


378 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


for private exhibition ; sometimes a little poem printed for the 
evening and handed about — one never knew what would be 
done. 

But always the hostess would be gracious, winning, caressing, 
smiling, and talking incessantly ; always she would be gliding 
about the room, making her friends talk ; the happy wife of 
the most accomplished and most versatile man in London. And 
always that illustrious genius himself, calm and grave, talking 
art seriously, laying down with authority the opinion that should 
be held to a circle who surrounded him. The circle consisted 
chiefly of women and of young men. Older men, with that re- 
luctance to listen to the voice of authority which distinguishes 
many after thirty, held aloof and talked with each other. “Alec 
Feilding,” said one of them, expressing the general opinion, 
“ may be a mighty clever fellow, but he talks like a dull book. 
You’ve heard it all before. And you’ve heard it better put. 
It’s wonderful that such a clever dog should be such a dull 
d ° g .” 

They came, however, in spite of the dulness ; the wife would 
have carried off a hundred dull dogs. 

As in certain earlier and better-known circles, the men great- 
ly outnumbered the women. “ I am not in love with my own 
sex,” said Mrs. Feilding, quite openly. “ I prefer the society of 
men.” But some women came of their own accord, and some 
were brought by their fathers, husbands, lovers, and brothers. 
No one could say that ladies kept away from Mrs. Feilding’s 
Sunday Evenings. 

This evening, the principal thing was the uncovering of a 
new picture — Mr. Feilding’s new picture. 

At ten o’clock the painter-poet, in obedience to a whisper 
from his wife, moved slowly, followed by his ring of disciples 
— male and female — all young — a callow brood — to the upper 
end of the room, where was an easel. A picture stood upon it, 
but a large green cloth was thrown over it. 

“ I thought,” said Mr. Alec Feilding, in his most dignified 
manner, “ that you would like to see this picture before any one 
else. It is one of the little privileges of our Sunday Evenings 
to show things to each other. Some of you may remember,” 
he said, with the true humility of genius, “ that I have exhib- 
ited, hitherto, chiefly pictures of coast scenery. 1 have always 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


379 


been of opinion that a man should not confine himself to one 
class of subjects. His purchasing public may demand it, but 
the true artist should disregard all and any considerations con- 
nected with money.” 

“ Your true artist hasn’t always got a weekly journal to fall 
back upon,” growled a young A.R.A. who did stick to one class 
of subjects. He had been brought there. As a rule, artists 
are not found at Mrs. Feilding’s, nor do they rally round the 
cleverest man in London. 

“ I say,” repeated the really great man, “ that the wishes of 
buyers must not be weighed for an instant in comparison with 
the true interests of art.” 

“ Like a copy-book,” murmured the Associate. 

“ Therefore, I have attempted a new line altogether. I have 
made new studies. They have cost a great deal of time and 
trouble and anxious thought. It is quite a new departure. I an- 
ticipate, beforehand, what you will say at first. But — Eccolo !” 

He lifted the green cloth. At the same moment his wife 
turned up a light that stood beside the painting. He disclosed 
a really very beautiful painting ; a group of trees beside a shal- 
low pool of water ; the trees were leafless ; a little snow lay at 
their roots ; the pool was frozen over ; there was a little mist 
over the ground, and between the trunks one saw the setting 
sun. 

“ By Jove ! It’s a Belgian picture !” cried the Associate. 
And, indeed, you may see hundreds of pictures exactly in this 
style in the Brussels galleries, where the artists are never tired 
of painting the flat country and the trees, at every season and 
under every light. 

“ Precisely,” said the painter. “ That is the remark which 
I anticipated. Let us call it — if you like — a Belgian picture. 
The subject is English ; the treatment, perhaps, Belgian. For 
my part, I am not too proud to learn something from the Bel- 
gians.” 

The Associate touched the man nearest him — an artist, not 
yet an Associate — on the arm. 

“ Ghosts !” he murmured. “ Spooks and ghosts !” 

“ Spectres 1” replied the other. “ Phantoms and bogies !” 

“ A haunted studio !” said the Associate. “ My knees totter ! 
My hair stands on end !” 


380 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ I tremble — I have goose-flesh !” replied his friend. 

“ Let us — let us run to the Society of Psychical Research !” 
whispered the Associate. 

“ Let us swiftly run !” said the other. 

They fled, swiftly and softly. Only Mrs. Feilding observed 
their flight. She also gathered from their looks the subject of 
their talk. And she resolved that she would not, henceforth, 
encourage artists at her Sunday Evenings. She turned to Dick 
Stephenson. 

“You, Mr. Stephenson,” she said, “who are a true critic and 
understand work, tell me what you think of the picture.” 

The great critic — he was not really a humbug ; he w r as very 
fond of looking at pictures ; only, you see, he was not an artist — 
advanced to the front, bent forward, considered a few moments, 
and then spoke : 

“ A dexterous piece of work — truly dexterous in the highest 
sense ; full of observation intelligently and poetically rendered ; 
careful ; truthful ; with intense feeling. I could hardly have 
believed that any English painter was capable of work in this 
genre." 

The people all gazed upon the canvas with rapt admiration ; 
they murmured that it was wonderful and beautiful. Then 
Alec covered up the picture, and somebody began to play 
something. 

“ Alec,” said Mr. Jagenal, who seldom came to these gather- 
ings, “ I congratulate you. Your picture is very good. And 
in a new style. When will you be content to settle down in 
the jog-trot that the British public love ?” 

“ Let me change my subject sometimes. When I am tired 
of trees I will go back, perhaps, to the coast and sea-pieces.” 

“ Ah ! But take care. There’s a fellow coming along — By 
the way, Alec, I have made a discovery lately.” 

“ What is it ?” 

“ About those rubies. Why, man — ” for Alec turned sud- 
denly pale — “ you remember that business still ?” 

“ Indeed I do,” he replied. “ And I am not likely to forget 
it in a hurry.” 

“My dear boy, to paint such pictures is worth many such 
bags of precious stones, if you will only think so.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


381 


“ What’s your discovery ?” Alec asked, hoarsely. 

“Well, I have found, quite accidentally, the eldest grand- 
child of the second daughter — your great-aunt.” 

“ Oh !” Again he changed color. “ Then you will, I suppose, 
hand him over the things.” 

“Yes, certainly. I have sent for him. He does not yet 
know what I want him for. And I shall give him the jewels 
in obedience to Armorel’s instructions. Alec, I have always 
been desperately sorry for your unfortunate discovery.” 

“ It caused a pang, certainly. And who is my cousin?” 

“Well, Alec, I will not tell you until I have made quite sure. 
Not that there is any doubt. But I had better not. You will 
perhaps like to make his acquaintance. Perhaps you know him 
already. I don’t say, mind.” 

“ Well, sir,” said Alec, “ when he realizes the extent and 
value of this windfall, I expect he will show you a depth of 
gratitude which will astonish you. I do, indeed.” 

« Zoe,” he said, when everybody was gone, “ are you quite 
sure that in the matter of those rubies your action can never be 
discovered ?” 

“Anything may be discovered. But I think — I believe — 
that it will be difficult. Why ?” 

“ Because my cousin, the grandson of Robert Fletcher’s sec- 
ond daughter, has been found, and he will receive the jewels 
to-morrow. And when he finds out what they are worth — ” 

“Then, Alec, it will be asked who had the jewels. They 
were taken to the bank by Mr. Jagenal and taken from thence 
to Mr. Jagenal. What have you — what have I — to do with 
them ? Don’t think about it, Alec. It has nothing to do with 
us. No suspicion can possibly attach to us. Forget the whole 
business. The ceremony went off very well. The picture struck 
them very much. And I’ve laid the foundation for curiosity 
about the play. And as for the paper, I w r as going into ac- 
counts this morning ; it is paying at the rate of three thousand 
a year. Alec, you have never until now been really and truly 
the cleverest man in London.” 


382 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE TRESPASS OFFERING. 

It was a day in midwinter. Over the adjacent island of 
Great Britain there was either a yellow fog, or a white fog, or 
a black fog. Perhaps there was no fog at all, but a black east 
wind, or there was melting snow, or there was cold sleet and 
rain ; whatever there was, to be out of doors brought no joy, 
and the early darkness was tolerable because it closed and hid 
and put away the day. In the archipelago of Scilly, the sky 
was bright and clear ; the sea was blue except in the shallow 
places, where it was a light transparent green ; the waves danced 
and sparkled ; round the ledges of the rocks the white foam 
rolled and leaped ; the sunshine was warm ; the air was fresh. 
The girls stood on the northern earn of Samson. They had 
been on the island now for eight months. For the greater part 
of that time they were alone. Only in the summer Archie came 
to pay them a visit. His play was accepted ; it would probably 
be brought out in January, perhaps not till later, according to 
the success of the piece then running. Meantime, he had got 
introductions, thanks to Armorel’s Evening, and now found -work 
enough to keep him going on one or two journals, where his 
occasional papers — the papers of a young and clever man feel- 
ing his way to style — were taken and published. And he was, 
of course, w r riting another play ; he was in love with another 
heroine — happy, if he knew his own happiness, in starting on 
that rare career in which a man is always in love, and blame- 
lessly, even with the knowledge of his wife, with a succession 
of the loveliest and most delightful damsels — country girls and 
princesses — lasses of the city and of the milking-path — Dolly 
and Molly and stately Kate, and the Duchess of Dainty Device. 
As yet, he had only lost his heart to two and was now raving 
over the second of his sweethearts. One such youth I have 
known and followed as he passed from the twenties to the thir- 
ties — to the forties — even to the fifties. He has always loved 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


383 


one girl after the other. He knows not how life can exist un- 
less a man is in love ; he is a mere slave and votary of love ; 
yet never with a goddess of the earth. He loves an image — a 
simulacrum — a phantom ; and he looks on with joy and satis- 
faction — yea ! the tears rise to his eyes when he sees that phan- 
tom at the last, after many cruel delays, fondly embraced — not 
by himself — but by another phantom. Happy lover! so to 
have lost the substance, yet to be satisfied with the shadow ! 

Except for Archie’s visit they had no guests all through the 
summer. The holiday visitors mostly arrive at Hugh Town, 
sail across to Tresco Gardens and back, some the same day, 
some the next day, thinking they have seen Scilly. None of 
them land on Samson. Few there are who sail about the Outer 
Islands where Armorel mostly loved to steer her boat. The 
two girls spent the whole time alone with each other for com- 
pany. I do not know whether the literature of the country will 
be enriched by Effie’s sojourn in Lyonesse, but one hopes. At 
least, she lost her pale cheeks and thin form ; strong as Ar- 
morel, almost as dexterous w r ith the sheet, and almost as handy 
with the oar. But of verses I fear that few came to her. With 
the best intentions, with piles of books, these two maidens idled 
away the summer, basking on the headlands, lying among the 
fern, walking over the downs of Bryher and St. Martin’s, sail- 
ing in and out among the channels, bathing in Porth Bay, or 
off the lonely beach of Ganilly in the eastern group. Always 
something to see or something to do. Once they ventured to 
sail by themselves — a parlous voyage, but the day was calm — 
all the way round Bishop’s Rock and back ; another time they 
sailed — but this time they took Peter — among the dogs of Scilly, 
climbed up on Black Rosevean, and stood on Gorregan with the 
cruel teeth. Once, on a very calm day in July, they even 
threaded the narrow channel between the twin rocks known 
together as the Scilly. Always there w T as something new to do 
or to see. So the morning and the afternoon passed away, and 
there was nothing left but tea and a little music, and a stroll 
in the moonlight or beneath the stars, and a talk together, and 
so to bed ; and if there came a rainy day, the cakes to make 
and the puddings to compose ! A happy, lazy, idle, profitable 
time ! 

“ We have been six months here and more, Effie,” said Ar- 


384 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


morel. They were sitting in the sunshine in the sheltered or- 
chard, among the wrinkled and twisted old apple-trees. “ What 
next? When shall we think of going back tp^ London? We 
must not stay here altogether, lest we rust. We will go back — 
shall we? — as soon as the short, dark days are over, and we 
will make a new departure somehow, but in what direction I 
do not quite know. Shall we travel? Shall we cultivate so- 
ciety ? What shall we do ?” 

“ We will go back to London as soon as Archie’s play is 
produced. Dear Armorel, I do not want ever to go away. I 
should like to stay here with you always and always. It has 
been a time of peace and quiet. Never before have I known 
sucb peace and such quiet. But we must go. We must go 
while the spell of the place is still upon us. Perhaps if we were 
to stay too long — Nature does not expect us to outstay her wel- 
come — not that her welcome is exhausted yet — but if we go 
away, shall we ever come back ? And, if so, will it be quite the 
same ?” , 

“ Nothing ever returns,” said Armorel the sage. “ We shall 
go away and we shall come back again, and there will be changes. 
Everything changes daily. The very music of the sea changes 
from day to day ; but it is always music. My old grandmother 
in the great chair used to hold her hand to her ear — so — to 
catch the lapping of the waves and the washing of the tide 
among the rocks. It was the music that she had known all her 
life. But the tune was different — the words of the song in her 
head were different — the key was changed — but always the mu- 
sic. Oh, my dear ! I never tire of this music. We will go 
away, Effie ; we must not stay too long here, lest we fall in love 
with solitude and renounce the world. But we will come back 
and hear the same music again, with a new song. We must go 
back.” She sighed. “Eight months. We must go and see 
Archie’s play. Archie ! It will be a proud and glorious day 
for him, if it succeeds. It must succeed. And not a word or 
a sign all this time from Roland ! What is he doing ? Why — ” 
She stopped. 

Effie laid a hand on hers. 

“ You have been restless for some days, Armorel,” she said. 

“ Yes — yes. I do not doubt him. No — no — he has returned 
to himself. He can never — never again — I do not doubt him.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


385 


She sprang to her feet. “ Oh, Effie ! I do not doubt, but some- 
times I fear. What do I fear? Why, I know there may be 
failure, but there can never again be disgrace.” 

“ You think of him so much, Armorel,” said Effie, with a 
touch of jealousy. 

“ I cannot think of him too much.” She looked out upon 
the sunlit sea at their feet, talking as one who talks to herself. 
“ How can I think of him too much ? I have thought of him 
every day for five years — every day. I love him, Effie. How 
can you think too much of the man you love ? Suppose I were 
to hear that he had failed again. That would make no differ- 
ence. Suppose he were to sink low — low — deep down among 
the worst of men — that would make no difference. I love the 
man as he may be — as he shall be — by the help of God, if not 
in this world, then in the world to come ! I love him, Effie !” 

She stopped because her voice choked with a sob. The 
strength of her passion — not for nothing was the Castilian in- 
vader wrecked upon Scilly ! — frightened the other girl. She 
had never dreamed of such a passion ; yet she knew that Ar- 
morel thought continually of this man. She did not dare to 
speak. She looked on with clasped hands, in silence. 

Armorel softened again. The tumult of her heart subsided. 
She turned to Effie and kissed her. 

“ Forgive me, dear ; you know now — but you have guessed 
already. Let us say no more. But I must see him soon. I 
must go to see him if he cannot come to see me. Let us go 
over the hill. This little orchard is like a hothouse this morn- 
ing.” 

When they reached the top of the hill they saw the steamer 
from Penzance rounding Bar Point on St. Mary’s and coming 
through the North Channel. 

“ They have had a fine passage,” said Armorel. “ The boat 
must have done it in three hours. I wonder if she brings any- 
thing for us. It is too early for the magazines. I wrote for 
those books, but I doubt if there has been time. And J wrote 
to Philippa, but I do not expect a letter in reply by this post.” 

“And I wrote to Archie, but I do not know whether I shall 
get a letter to-day. Suppose there should come a visitor ?” 

“Few visitors come to Scilly in the winter — and none to 
Samson. We are alone on our desert island, Effie. See, the 
17 


386 


AIIMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


steamer is entering the port ; the tide is low ; she cannot get 
alongside the quay. It is such a fine day that it is a pity we 
did not sail over this morning and meet the steamer. There 
goes the steam-launch from Tresco.” 

It is quite a mile from Samson to the quay of Hugh Town ; 
but the air was so clear that Armorel, whose eyes were as good 
as any ordinary field-glass, could plainly make out the agitation 
and bustle on the quay caused by the arrival of the steamer. 

“ The boat always carries my thoughts back to London,” 
said Armorel. “And we have been talking about London, 
hav_e we not? When I was a child the boat came into the 
Road out of the Unknown, and next day went back to the Un- 
known. What was the other side like ? I filled it up with the 
vague splendor of a child’s imagination. The Unknown to me 
was like the sunrise or the sunset. Well . . . now I know. 
The poets say that knowledge makes us no happier. I think 
they are quite wrong. It is always better to know everything, 
even though it’s little joy — 

“ To feel that Heaven is farther off 
Than when one was a boy.” 

“ There is a boat,” she went on, after a while. “ She is put- 
ting out from the port. I wonder what boat it is. Perhaps 
she is going to Bryher — or to St. Martin’s — or to St. Agnes. 
It is not the light-liouse boat. She is sailing as if for Samson; 
but she cannot be coming here. What a lovely breeze ! She 
would be here in a quarter of an hour. I suppose she must be 
going to Tresco. See what comes of living on a desert island. 
We are actually speculating about the voyage of a sailing-boat 
across the Road ! Effie, we are little better than village gossips. 
You shall marry Mr. Paul Pry.” 

“ She looks very pretty,” said Effie, “ heeling over with the 
wind, wherever she is going.” 

“ They are steering south of Green Island,” said Armorel. 
“That is very odd. If she had been making for Bryher or 
Tresco, she would leave Green Island on the lee, and steer up 
the channel past Puffin. I really believe that she is coming to 
Samson. I expect there is a parcel for us. Let us run down 
to the beach, Effie. We shall get there just in time.” 

They ran down the hill. As the boatman lowered the sail, 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


387 


and the boat grounded on the firm white sand of the beach, the 
girls arrived. The boat brought, however, no packet — 

“ Oh !” cried Effie. “ It is Roland Lee 1” 

It was none other than that young man of whom they had 
been speaking. Armorel changed color; she blushed a rosy 
red ; then she recovered quickly, and stepped forward as Rol- 
and leaped out upon the sand. “ Welcome back to Samson !” 
she said, giving him her hand with her old frankness. “ We 
expected you to come, but we did not know when.” 

“ May I stay ?” he murmured, taking her hand and looking 
into her face. 

“ You know — yourself,” she replied. 

He made answer by shouldering his portmanteau. “ No new 
road has been made, I suppose,” he said. “ Shall I go first ? 
IIow well I remember the way over the hill ! Samson has 
changed little since I was here last.” 

He led the way, all laughing and chatting as if his visit were 
expected, and as if it were the most natural thing in the world, 
and the most common thing, to run down to the beach and meet 
a morning caller from London Town. But Effie, who was as 
observant as a poet ought to be, saw how Roland kept looking 
round as he led, as if he would be still catching sight of Ar- 
morel. 

“Come, Dorcas,” cried Armorel, when they arrived at the 
house. “Come, Chessun — here is Mr. Roland Lee. You have 
not forgotten Mr. Lee. He has come to stay with us again.” 
The serving-women came out and shook hands with him in 
friendly fashion. Forgotten Mr. Lee ? Why, he was the only 
young man who had been seen at Holy Farm since Armorel’s 
brothers were drowned — victims to the relentless wrath of those 
execrable rubies. 

“You shall have your old room,” said Dorcas. “Chessun 
will air the bed for you, and light a fire to warm the room. 
Well, Mr. Lee, you are not much altered. Your beard is grown, 
and you’re a bit stouter. Not much changed. You’re married 
yet ?” 

“ Not yet, Dorcas.” 

“ Armorel, she’s a woman now. When you left her she was 
little better than a child. I say she’s improved, but perhaps 
you wish she was a child again ?” 


388 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


“ Indeed, no,” said Roland. 

Everything was quite commonplace. There was not the least 
romance about the return of the wanderer. It was half-past two. 
He had had nothing to eat since breakfast, and, after three hours 
and more upon the sea, one is naturally hungry. Chessun laid 
the cloth, and put the cold beef — cold boiled beef — upon the 
table. Pickles were also produced — a pickled walnut is not a 
romantic object. The young man was madly in love ; he had 
come all the way from town on purpose to explain and dilate 
upon that wonderful accident ; yet he took a pickled walnut. 
Nay, he was in a famishing condition, and he tackled the beef 
and beer — that old Brown George full of the home-brewed, with 
a head of foam like the head of a venerable bishop — as if he were 
not in love at all. And Armorel sat opposite to him at the table, 
talking to him about the voyage and his studio, and whether he 
had furnished it, and all kinds of things, and Chessun hovered 
over him, suggesting more pickles. And he laughed, and Ar- 
morel laughed — why not? They were both as happy as they 
could be. But Effie wondered how Armorel, whose heart was so 
full, whose soul was so charged and heavy with love, could laugh 
thus gayly and talk thus idly. 

After luncheon, which, of course, was, in Samson fashion, 
dinner, Roland got up and stood in the square window, looking 
out to sea. Armorel stood beside him. 

“ I remember standing here,” he said, “ one morning five years 
ago. A great deal has happened since then.” 

“ A great deal. We are older— we know more of the world.” 

“ We are stronger, Armorel ” — their eyes met — “ else I should 
not be here.” 

It was quite natural that Armorel should put on her jacket and 
take her hat, and that they should go out together. Effie took her 
seat in the window, and lay in the sunshine, a book, neglected, in 
her lap. Armorel had got her lover back. She loved him. Oh ! 
she loved him. So heavenly is the contemplation of human 
love that Effie found it more soothing than the words of wis- 
dom in her book, more full of comfort than any printed page. 
Human love, she knew well, would never fall to her lot ; all the 
more should she meditate on love in others. Well, she has her 
compensations ; while others act, she looks on | while others 
feel, she will tell the world, in her verse, what and how they 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


389 


feel ; to be loved is the chief and crowning blessing for a wom- 
an, but such as Effie have tbeir consolations. 

She looked up, and saw old Dorcas standing in the door. 

“ They have gone out in the boat,” she said. “ When I saw 
him coming over the hill I said to Chessun, ‘ He’s come again. 
He’s come for Armorel at last. I always knew he would. And 
now they’ve gone out in the boat, to be quite alone. Is he worth 
her, Miss Effie ? Is he worth my girl ?” 

“ If he is not, she will make him worth her. But nobody could 
be worth Armorel. Are you sure you are not mistaken, Dorcas ?” 

“ No — no — no, I am not mistaken. The love-light is in his 
eyes, and the answering love in hers. I know the child. She 
loved him six years ago. She is as steadfast as the compass. 
She can never change. Once love always love, and no other 
love. She has thought about him ever since. Why did she go 
away and leave us alone without her for five long years ? She 
wanted to learn things, so as to make herself fit for him. As if 
he would care what things she knew, if only he loved her ! ’Twas 
the beautiful maid he would love, with her soft heart and her 
tender voice and her steadfast ways — not what she knew.” 

“ Oh ! but, Dorcas, perhaps — you are not quite sure — we do 
not know — one may be mistaken.” 

“ You may be mistaken, Miss Effie. As for me, I’ve been 
married for five-and-fifty years. A woman of my age is never 
mistaken. I saw the love-light in his eyes, and I saw the an- 
swering love in hers. And I know my own girl, that I’ve nursed 
and brought up since the cruel sea swallowed up her father and 
her mother and her brothers. No, Miss Effie, I know what I 
can see.” 

One does not, as a rule, go in a small open boat upon the wa- 
ter in December, even in Scilly, whose winter hath nor frost nor 
snow. But these two young people, quite naturally, and with- 
out so much as asking whether it were summer or winter, got 
into the boat. Roland took the oars — Armorel sat in the stern. 
They put out from Samson what time the midwinter sun was 
sinking low. The tide was rising fast, and the wind was from 
the southeast. When they were clear of Green Island, Roland 
hoisted the sail. 

“ I have a fancy,” he said, “ to sail out to Round Islaild and 
to see Camber Rock again this first day of my return. Shall 


390 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


we have time ? We can let the sun go down ; there will be 
light enough yet for an hour. You can steer the craft in the 
dark, Armorel. You are captain of this boat, and I am your 
crew. You can steer me safely home, even on the darkest night 
— in the blackest time,” he added, with a deeper meaning than 
lay in his simple words. 

The sail caught the breeze, and the boat heeled over. Rol- 
and sat holding the rope while Armorel steered. Neither spoke. 
They sailed up New Grimsby Channel between Tresco and Bry- 
her, past Hangman’s Island, past Cromwell’s Castle. They sailed 
right through beyond the rocks and ledges outlying Tresco, out- 
side Menovawr, the great triple rock, with his two narrow chan- 
nels, and so to the north of Round Island. The sky was aflame ; 
the waters were splendid with the colors of the west. They 
rounded the island. Then Roland lowered the sail and put out 
the oars. “ We must row now,” he said. “ How glorious it all 
is ! I am back again. Nine short months ago — you remember, 
Armorel ? — how could I have hoped to come here again — to sail 
with you in your boat ?” 

“ Yet you are here,” she said, simply. 

“ I have so much to say, and I could not say it except in the 
boat.” 

“Yes, Roland.” 

“ First of all, I have sold that picture. It is not a great price 
that I have taken ; but I have sold it. You will be pleased to 
hear that. Next, I have two commissions, at a better price. 
Don’t believe, Armorel, that I am thinking about nothing but 
money. The first step towards success is to be self-supporting. 
Well — I have taken that first step. I have also obtained some 
work on an illustrated paper. That keeps me going. I have 
regained my lost position — and more — more, Armorel. The 
way is open to me at last ; everything is open to me, if I can 
force myself to the front.” 

“No man can ask for more, can he ?” 

“ No. He cannot. As for the time, Armorel, the horrible, 
shameful time — ” 

“ Roland, you said you would not come here until the shame 
of that time belonged altogether to the past.” 

“It ‘does; it does; yet the memory lingers — sometimes, at 
night, I think of it — and I am abased.” 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


391 


“ We cannot forget — I suppose we -can never forget. That 
is the burden which we lay upon ourselves. Oh ! we must all 
walk humbly, because we have all fallen so far short of the best, 
and because we cannot forget.” 

11 But — to be forgiven. That, also, is so hard.” 

“ Oh, Roland, you mistake. We can always forgive those we 
love — yes — everything — everything — unto seventy times seven. 
How can we love, if we cannot forgive ? The difficulty is to 
forgive ourselves. We shall do that when we have risen high 
enough to understand how great a thing is the soul — I don’t 
know how to put what I wish to say. Once I read in a book 
that there was a soul wlio wished — who would not? — to enter 
into heaven. The doors were wide open ; the hands of the an- 
gels were held out in love and welcome ; but the soul shrank 
back. * I cannot enter,’ he said ; * I cannot forgive myself.’ 
You must learn to forgive yourself, Roland. As for those who 
love you, they ask for nothing more than to see your foot upon 
the upward slope.” 

“ It is there, Armorel. Twice you have saved me : once from 
death by drowning ; once from a worse death still — the second 
death. Twice your arms have been stretched out to save me 
from destruction.” 

They were silent again. The boat rocked gently in the water ; 
the setting sun upon Armorel’s face lent her cheek a warmer, 
softer glow, and lit her eyes, which were suffused with tears. 
Roland, sitting in his place, started up and dipped the oars 
again. 

“ It is nearly half-tide now,” he said. “ Let us row through 
the Camber Pass. I want to see that dark ravine again. It is 
the place I painted with you — you of the present, not of the 
past — in it. I have sold the picture, but I have a copy. Now 
I have two paintings, with you in each. One hangs in the 
studio, and the other in my own room, so that by night as well 
as by day I feel that my guardian angel is always with me.” 

Through the narrow ravine between Camber Rock and Round 
Island the water races and boils and roars when the tide runs 
strongly. Now it was flowing gently — almost still. The sun 
was so low that the rock on the east side was obscured by the 
great mass of Round Island ; the channel was quite dark. The 
dipping of the oars echoed along the black walls of rock ; but 


392 


ARMOKEL OF LYONESSE. 


overhead there was the soft and glowing sky, and in the light- 
blue already appeared two or three stars. 

“ A strange thing has happened to me, Armorel,” Roland said, 
speaking low, as if in a church — “ a very strange and wonderful 
thing. It is a thing which connects me with you and with your 
people and with the island of Samson. You remember the story 
told us one evening — the evening before I left you — by the an- 
cient lady ?” 

“ Of course. She told that story so often, and I used to suffer 
such agonies of shame that my ancestor should act so basely, 
and such terrors in thinking of the fate of his soul, that I am 
not likely to forget the story.” 

“ You remember that she mistook me for Robert Fletcher ?” 

“ Yes ; I remember.” 

“ She was not so very far wrong, Armorel ; because, you see, 
I am Robert Fletcher’s great-grandson.” 

“ Oh, Roland ! Is it possible ?” 

“ I suppose that there may have been some resemblance. She 
forgot the present, and was carried back in imagination to the 
past, eighty years ago.” 

“ Oh ! And you did not know ?” 

“ If you think of it, Armorel, very few middle-class people 
are able to tell the maiden name of their grandmother. We do 
not keep our genealogies as we should.” 

“ Then how did you find it out ?” 

“ Mr. Jagenal, your lawyer, found it out. He sent for me and 
proved it quite clearly. Robert Fletcher left three daughters. 
The eldest died unmarried; the second and third married. I 
am the eldest grandson of the second daughter who went to 
Australia. Now, which is very odd, the only grandson of the 
third daughter is a man whose name you may remember. They 
call him Alec Feilding. He is at once a painter, a poet, a novel- 
ist, and is about to become, I hear, a dramatist. He is my own 
cousin. This is strange, is it not ?” 

“ Oh ! It is wonderful.” 

“Mr. Jagenal, at the same time, made me a communication. 
He was instructed, he said, by you. Therefore, you know the 
nature of the communication.” 

“ He gave you the rubies.” 

“Yes. He gave them to me. I have brought them back. 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


393 


They are in my pocket. I restore them to yon, Armorel.” He 
drew forth the packet — the case of shagreen — and laid it in .Ar- 
morers lap. 

“ Keep them. I will not have them. Let me never see them.” 
She gave them back to him quickly. “Keep them out of my 
sight, Roland. They are horrible things. They bring disaster 
and destruction.” 

“You will not have them? You positively refuse to have 
them ? Then I can keep them to myself. Why — that is brave !” 
He opened the case and unrolled the silken wrapper. 

“ See, Armorel, the pretty things ! They sparkle in the dying 
light. Do you know that they are worth thousands ? You have 
given me a fortune. I am rich at last. What is there in the 
world to compare with being rich ? Now I can buy anything I 
want. The Way of Wealth is the Way of Pleasure. What did I 
tell you ? My feet were dragged into that way as if with ropes ; 
now they can go dancing of their own accord — no need to drag 
them. They fly — they trip — they have wings. What is art ? — 
what is work ? — what is the soul ? — nothing ! Here ” — he took 
up a handful of the stones and dropped them back again into 
the piles — “ here, Armorel, is what will purchase pleasure — solid 
comfort ! I shall live in ease and sloth ; I shall do nothing ; I 
shall feast every day ; everybody will call me a great painter be- 
cause I am rich. Oh, I have a splendid vision of the days to 
come, when I have turned these glittering things into cash! 
Farewell drudgery — I am rich ! Farewell disappointment — I 
am rich ! Farewell servitude — I am rich ! Farewell work and 
struggle — I am rich ! Why should I care any more for art ? I 
am rich, Armorel ! I am rich !” 

“ That is not all you are going to say about the rubies, Rol- 
. and. Come to the conclusion.” 

“ Not quite all. In the old days I flung away everything for the 
Way of Wealth and the Way of Pleasure — as I thought. Good 
heavens! What wealth came to me? What pleasure? Well, 
Armorel, in your presence I now throw away the wealth. Since 
you will not have it, I will not.” 

He seized the case as if he would throw it overboard. She 
leaned forward eagerly and stopped him. 

“ Will you really do this, Roland ? Stop a moment. Think. 
It is a great sacrifice. You might use that wealth for all kinds 
11 * 


394 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


of good and useful things. You could command the making of 
beautiful things ; you could help yourself in your art ; you could 
travel and study — you could do a great deal, you know, with all 
this money. Think, before you do what can never be undone.” 

Roland, for reply, laid the rubies again in her lap. It was as 
if one should bring a trespass offering and lay it upon the altar. 
The case was open, and the light was still strong enough over- 
head for the rubies to be seen in a glittering heap. 

He took them up again. “ Do you consent, Armorel ?” 

She bowed her head. 

He took a handful of the stones and dropped them in the 
water. There was a little splash, and the precious stones, the 
fortune of Robert Fletcher, the gems of the Burmah mines, 
dropped like a shower upon the surface. They were, as we 
know, nothing but bits of paste and glass, but this he did not 
know. And therefore the trespass offering was -rich and pre- 
cious. Then he took the silken kerchief which had wrapped 
them and threw the rest away, as one throws into the sea a 
handful of pebbles picked up on the beach. 

“ So,” he said, “ that is done. And now I am poor again. 
You shall keep the empty case, Armorel, if you like.” 

“ No — no. I do not want even the case. I want never to be 
reminded again of the rubies and the story of Robert Fletcher.” 
Roland dipped the oars again, and with two or three vigorous 
strokes pulled the boat out of the dark channel — the tomb of 
his wealth — into the open water beyond. There in the dying 
light the puffins swam and dived, and the seagulls screamed as 
they flew overhead, and on the edge of the rocks the shags stood 
in meditative rows. 

Far away in the studio of the poet-painter — the cleverest man- 
in London — sat two who were uneasy with the same gnawing 
anxiety. Roland Lee had the rubies. When would the dis- 
covery be made ? When would there be an inquiry ? What 
would come out? As the time goes on this anxiety will grow 
less, but it will never wholly vanish. It will change perhaps 
into curiosity as to what has been done with those bits of glass 
and paste. Why has not Roland found out? He must have 
given them to his wife, and she must have kept them locked up. 
Some day it will be discovered that they are valueless. But 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


395 


then it will be far too late for any inquiry. As yet they do not 
speak of the thing. It is too recent. Roland Lee has but just 
acquired his fortune ; he is still gloating over the stones ; he is 
building castles in the air ; he is planning his future. When 
he finds out the truth about them — what will happen then ? 

“ 1 have had a bad dream of temptation with rubies, Armorel. 
Temptation harder than you would believe. How calm is the 
sea to-night ! How warm the air ! The last light of the west 
lies on your cheek, and — Armorel ! Oh ! Armorel !” 

It was quite six o’clock, long after dark, when the two came 
home. They walked over the hill hand in hand. They entered 
the room hand in hand, their faces grave and solemn. I know 
not what things had been said between them, but they were 
things quite sacred. Only the lighter things — the things of the 
surface — the things that everybody expects — can be set down 
concerning love. The tears stood in Armorel’s eyes. And, as 
if Effie had not been in the room at all, she held out both her 
hands for her lover to take, and when he bent his head she 
raised her face to meet his lips. 

“ You have come back to me, Roland,” she said. “ You have 
grown so tall — so tall — grown to your full height. Welcome 
home !” 

At seven the door opened and the serving-folk came in. First 
marched Justinian, bowed and bent, but still active. Then Dor- 
cas, also bowed and bent, but active. Then Chessun. Effie 
turned down the lamp. 

Dorcas stood for a moment, while Chessun placed the chairs, 
gazing upon Roland, who stood erect as a soldier surveyed by 
his captain. 

“You have got a good face,” she said, “if a loving face is a 
good face. If you love her you will make her happy. If she 
loves you your lot is happy. If you deserve her, you are not 
far from the Kingdom of Heaven.” 

“ Your words, Dorcas,” he replied, “ are of good omen.” 

“ Chessun shall make a posset to-night,” she said. “ If ever 
a posset was made, one shall be made to-night — a sherry posset ! 
I remember the posset for your mother, Armorel, and for your 


396 


ARMOREL OF LYONESSE. 


grandmother, the first day she came here with her sweetheart. 
A sherry posset you shall have — hot and strong !” 

The old man sat down and threw small lumps of coal upon 
the fire. Then the flames leaped up, and the red light played 
about the room and on Armorel’s glowing face as she took her 
fiddle and stood up in the old place to play to them in the old 
fashion. 

Dorcas sat opposite her husband. At her left hand, Chessun 
with her spinning-wheel. It was all — except for the ancient 
lady and the hooded chair — all exactly as Roland remembered 
it six years before. Yet, as Armorel said, though outside there 
was the music of the waves and within the music of her violin 
— the music was set to other words and arranged for another 
key. Between himself of that time and of the present, how 
great a gulf ! 

Armorel finished tuning, and looked towards her master. 

“ ‘ Dissembling Love ’ !” he commanded. “ ’Tis a moving 
piece, and you play it rarely. ‘ Dissembling Love ’ !” 


THE END. 


THE CAPTAIN OF THE JANIZARIES. 

A Tale of the Times of Scanderbeg and the Fall of Constan- 
tinople. By James M. Ludlow, D.D., Litt.D. pp. iv., 
404. 16 mo, Cloth, $1 60. 

The author writes clearly and easily ; his descriptions are often of much 
brilliancy, while the whole setting of the story is of that rich Oriental char- 
acter which fires the fancy. — Boston Courier. 

Strong in its central historical character, abounding in incident, rapid 
and stirring in action, animated and often brilliant in style. — Christian 
Union , N. Y. 

Something new and striking interests us in almost every chapter. The 
peasantry of the Balkans, the training and government of the Janizaries, 
the interior of Christian and Moslem camps, the horrors of raids and bat- 
tles, the violence of the Sultan, the tricks of spies, the exploits of heroes, 
engage Mr. Ludlow’s fluent pen. — N. Y. Tribune. 

Dr. Ludlow’s style is a constant reminder of Walter Scott, and the book 
is to retain a permanent place in literature. — Observer , N. Y. 

An altogether admirable piece of work — picturesque, truthful, and dra- 
matic. — Newark Advertiser. 

A most romantic, enjoyable tale. ... As affording views of inner life in 
the East as long ago as the middle of the fifteenth century, this tale ought 
to have a charm for many; but it is full enough of incident, wherever 
the theatre of its action might be found, to do this. — Troy Press. 

The author has used his material with skill, weaving the facts of history 
into a story crowded with stirring incidents and unexpected situations, and 
a golden thread of love-making, under extreme difficulties, runs through 
the narrative to a happy issue. — Examiner , N. Y. 

One of the strongest and most fascinating historical novels of the last 
quarter of a century. — Boston Pilot. 

A refreshing and remarkable production. There is here no wearisome 
soul-searching, and no minute analysis of the trivial, but a straightforward 
romance, written almost in the great manner of Scott. As a story, it is 
absorbingly interesting from first page to last. As a resuscitation of 
history, it has the accuracy without the pedantry of the works of German 
and other moderns. As a presentation of the physical aspects of the 
Balkan peninsula, it is very striking, and shows close familiarity with the 
regions described. As a study of the life and manner of the remote 
epoch with which it deals, it exhibits, without ostentation, a careful and 
minute research; and as a literary composition, it has more merits and 
fewer faults than most of the books written in this age of hurried pro- 
duction. — Dial , Chicago. 


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BY W. D. HOWELLS. 


THE SHADOW OF A DREAM. A Story. 12mo, Paper, 
50 cents ; Cloth, $1 00. 

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. Illustrated. 8vo, 
Paper, 75 cents; 12 mo, Cloth, 2 vols., $2 00. 

Never, certainly, lias Mr. Howells written more brilliantly, more clearly, 
more firmly, or more attractively than in this instance. — N. Y. Tribune. 

This new novel is distinguished by the possession in an unusual de- 
gree of all the familiar qualities of Mr. Howells’s style. The humor of 
it, particularly, is abundant and delightful. — Philadelphia Press. 

MODERN ITALIAN POETS. Essays and Versions. With 
Portraits. 12 mo, Half Cloth, $2 00. 

Mr. Howells has in this work enriched American literature by a great 
deal of delicate, discriminating, candid, and sympathetic criticism. He 
has enabled the general public to obtain a knowledge of modern Italian 
poetry which they could have acquired in no other way. — W. Y. Tribune. 

ANNIE KILBURN. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50. 

Mr. Howells has certainly never given us in one novel so many por- 
traits of intrinsic interest. Annie Kilburn herself is a masterpiece of 
quietly veracious art — the art which depends for its effect on unswerv- 
ing fidelity to the truth of Nature. ... It certainly seems to us the 
very best book that Mr. Howells has written. — Spectator , London. 

APRIL HOPES. 12 mo, Cloth, $1 50. 

Mr. Howells never wrote a more bewitching book. It is useless to 
deny the rarity and worth of the skill that can report so perfectly and 
with such exquisite humor all the fugacious and manifold emotions of 
the modern maiden and her lover. — Philadelphia Press. 

THE MOUSE-TRAP, and Other Farces. 12 mo, Cloth, 
$1 00 . 

Mr. Howells’s gift of lively appreciation of the humors that lie on the 
surface of conduct and conversation, and his skill in reproducing them 
in literary form, make him peculiarly successful in his attempts at grace- 
ful, delicately humorous dialogue. — Boston Advertiser. 


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BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. 


A LITTLE JOURNEY IN THE WORLD. A Novel, 
pp. iv., 396. Post 8vo, Half Leather, $1 50. 

STUDIES IN THE SOUTH AND WEST, with Com- 
ments on Canada. pp. iv., 484. Post 8vo, Half 
Leather, $1 75. 

A witty, instructive book, as brilliant in its pictures as it is warm 
in its kindness ; and we feel sure that it is with a patriotic impulse 
that we say that we shall be glad to learn that the number of its 
readers bears some proportion to its merits and its power for good. 
— A". T. Commercial Advertiser. 

Sketches made from studies of the country and the people upon 
the ground. . . . They are the opinions of a man and a scholar with- 
out prejudices, and only anxious to state the facts as they were. . . . 
When told in the pleasant and instructive w r ay of Mr. Warner the 
studies arc as delightful as they are instructive.— Chicago Inter- 
Ocean. 

Perhaps the most accurate and graphic account of these portions 
of the country that has appeared, taken all in all. ... It is a book 
most charming— a book that no American can fail to enjoy, appre- 
ciate, and highly prize. — Boston Traveller. 

THEIR PILGRIMAGE. Richly Illustrated by C. S. 
Reinhart, pp. viii., 364. Post 8vo, Half Leather, 
$2 00 . 

Mr. Warner’s pen-pictures of the characters typical of each re- 
sort, of the manner of life followed at each, of the humor and ab- 
surdities peculiar to Saratoga, or Newport, or Bar Harbor, as the 
case may be, are as good-natured as they are clever. The satire, 
when there is any, is of the mildest, and the general tone is that of 
one glad to look on the brightest side of the cheerful, pleasure-seek- 
ing world with which he mingles. — Christian Union, N. Y. 

Mr. Reinhart’s spirited and realistic illustrations are very attract- 
ive, and contribute to make an unusually handsome book. We 
have already commented upon the earlier chapters of the text; and 
the happy blending of travel and fiction which we looked forward 
to with confidence did, in fact, distinguish this story among the 
serials of the year. — N. T. Evening Post. 


Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

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BEN-HUR: A TALE OF THE CHRIST. 

By Lew. Wallace. New Edition, pp. 552. 16mo, 

Cloth, $1 50. 


Anything so startling, new, and distinctive as the leading feature of 
this romance does not often appear in works of fiction. . . . Some of Mr. 
Wallace’s writing is remarkable for its pathetic eloquence. The scenes 
described in the New Testament are rewritten with the power and skill of 
an accomplished master of style. — W. Y. Times. 

Its real basis is a description of the life of the Jews and Romans at the 
beginning of the Christian era, and this is both forcible and brilliant. . . . 
We are carried through a surprising variety of scenes ; we witness a sea- 
fight, a chariot-race, the internal economy of a Roman galley, domestic in- 
teriors at Antioch, at Jerusalem, and among the tribes of the desert; pal- 
aces, prisons, the haunts of dissipated Roman youth, the houses of pious 
families of Israel. There is plenty of exciting incident; everything is ani- 
mated, vivid, and glowing. — N. Y. Tribune. 

From the opening of the volume to the very close the reader’s interest 
will be kept at the highest pitch, and the novel will be pronounced by all 
one of the greatest novels of the day. — Boston Post. 

It is full of poetic beauty, as though born of an Eastern sage, and there 
is sufficient of Oriental customs, geography, nomenclature, etc., to greatly 
strengthen the semblance. — Boston Commonwealth. 

“Ben-Hur” is interesting, and its characterization is fine and strong. 
Meanwhile it evinces careful study of the period in which the scene is laid, 
and will help those who read it with reasonable attention to realize the 
nature and conditions of Hebrew life in Jerusalem and Roman life at 
Antioch at the time of our Saviour’s advent. — Examiner, N. Y. 

It is really Scripture history of Christ’s time clothed gracefully and deli- 
cately in the flowing and loose drapery of modern fiction. . . . Few late 
works of fiction excel it in genuine ability and interest. — N. Y. Graphic. 

One of the most remarkable and delightful books. It is as real and 
warm as life itself, and as attractive as the grandest and most heroic chap- 
ters of history. — Indianapolis Journal. 

The book is one of unquestionable power, and will be read with un- 
wonted interest by many readers who are weary of the conventional novel 
and romance. — Boston Journal. 


Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New Yokk. 

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